Room volume and room dimension estimation

1. A method, comprising:

detecting sound coming from a room;

establishing an acoustic impulse response of the room;

determining a number of sound reflections corresponding to the impulse response; and

determining volume of the room as a function of the sound reflections.

2. The method of claim 1 , which includes determining at least one value corresponding to a dimension of the room from the volume.

3. The method of claim 1 , which includes determining at least one value corresponding to an absorption coefficient at a boundary of the room from the volume.

4. A method, comprising:

detecting sound reflected from one or more surfaces of a room;

counting a number of sound reflections from the one or more surfaces over a selected time interval; and

estimating volume of the room as a function of the number of sound reflections and the time interval.

5. The method of claim 4 , which includes generating an impulsive sound to cause the sound reflected from the one or more surfaces.

6. The method of claim 4 , which includes determining at least one of a dimension of the room and an acoustic absorption coefficient of a boundary of the room.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the function corresponds to V=(4π/3N)(cT) 3 with V representing the volume of the room, N representing the number of the sound reflections, c representing sound propagation velocity, and T representing the selected time interval.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein:

said detecting is performed with at least one microphone; and

said counting and said estimating are performed with one or more processors.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein said microphone and said one or more processors are included in a hearing assistance device.

10. A method, comprising:

detecting a number of sound reflections of a room in response to an impulsive sound;

determining one or more values corresponding to reverberation time from the number of sound reflections based on a mirror image reflection model; and

estimating at least one of a dimension of the room and an acoustic absorption coefficient of a boundary of the room as a function of the one or more values.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein said determining includes estimating volume of the room and determining the one or more values from the volume of the room.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein said determining includes calculating delay and amplitude of the number of reflections.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein said determining includes performing an annealing routine.

14. The method of claim 10 , which includes generating the impulsive sound.

15. An apparatus, comprising: a device carrying logic executable by one or more processors to process data corresponding to a number of sound reflections coming from a room over an selected time interval in response to an impulsive sound, the logic being operable to provide an estimate of volume of the room as a function of the number of sound reflections and the selected time interval.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the logic includes a number of software instructions and the device includes a computer-readable memory storing the software instructions.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the computer-readable memory is of a removable memory device type.

18. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the logic operates with the function corresponding to V=(4π/3N)(cT) 3 ; with V representing the volume of the room, N representing the number of the sound reflections, c representing sound propagation velocity, and T representing the selected time interval.

19. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the logic further operates to estimate at least one of a dimension of the room and an acoustic absorption coefficient of a boundary of the room.

20. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the volume is determined with a mirror image reflection model of an impulse response of the room.

21. A system, comprising:

a sensor for detecting sound; and

a processing subsystem operable to receive sound-representative signals from the sensor to determine volume of a room as a function of a number of sound reflections of the room in response to an impulsive sound based on a mirror image reflection model of an impulse response of the room.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein the function corresponds to V=(4π/3N)(cT) 3 ; with V representing the volume of the room, N representing the number of the sound reflections, c representing sound propagation velocity, and T representing the selected time interval.

23. The system of claim 21 , wherein the processing subsystem includes means for estimating at least one of a dimension of the room and an acoustic absorption parameter of a boundary of the room.

24. The system of claim 21 , further comprising an output device selectively responsive to the volume of the room.

25. The system of claim 21 , wherein the processing subsystem includes means for recording the sound-representative signals.