JP2001339799A - Virtual meeting apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To overcome the problem such that in a television telephone meeting system, in the case of impossibility of setting a large display, for example in a vehicle, it is difficult to specify the speaker, and also difficult to resolve the same problem in a telephone meeting system. SOLUTION: The conferees A-D riding in vehicles A-D are connected from communication units in each vehicle to a host control processor 10 set up in a headquarter or the like. The control processor 10, after specifying the conferees through a conferee specifying part 14, assigns each conferee to the seats of virtual tables in a virtual meeting room by a virtual meeting room seating part 15. A target characteristic decision part 16 obtains spacing between each seats, angles and impulse characteristic responding to amplitude information so as to decide a target characteristic for sound space control. The target characteristic is transmitted to sound space control devices of each conferee so as to proceed sound control to equate the characteristic at the control devices to the transmitted target characteristic.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a conference apparatus in which a plurality of persons at remote locations hold a conference by using a communication device such as a telephone. In addition, the present invention relates to a virtual conference apparatus that can specify a position of a speaker by controlling a sound field output from a speaker in accordance with the position, thereby enabling a speaker to be clearly identified.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, when meetings are regularly or urgently held at a company having branches all over the country, a person in charge of each branch often gathers at the head office to hold a meeting. For example, in order to reduce travel time, a terminal of a video conference system equipped with a TV camera and a monitor is installed in one room of each branch. The teleconferencing system controller controls the focus movement of the television camera to the speaker, the transmission of images and sounds, and the automatic screen enlargement control of the speaker on each monitor.

[0003] Such a video conference system is still expensive, and its facilities are also large, so its installation location is specified, and it cannot be said that it is necessarily widely used. In particular, the fact that the installation location is specified,
For example, in the case of a sudden conference call, if the attendees of the conference are traveling by car, they cannot attend this video conference call. You need to move urgently.

In order to solve such a problem, the terminal of the conventional video conference system is reduced in size, a small TV camera and a small monitor are used, and a small terminal connecting these devices is connected to a telephone line. A video conference call system to be connected is also being considered. In addition, in order to reduce the cost and improve the mobility, without sending and receiving video,
There has also been provided a telephone conference system in which a conference can be performed only by voice.

[0005]

On the other hand, in recent years, on-vehicle equipment has been gradually enhanced, and high-end vehicles such as company officers' vehicles are equipped with external communication facilities, high-end audio equipment, television monitors, and the like. In many cases, a system in which these devices can be freely operated and controlled in a rear seat where a VIP is seated has been used. Therefore, in such a vehicle, the above-mentioned VI in the vehicle is used.
Since P can freely communicate with the outside, by installing a terminal of a small video conference system on this vehicle, for example, he felt the need to immediately hear the opinions of others while traveling in this car, Can be called into the video conference system to hold a conference.

[0006] At this time, if the person who attends the above-mentioned video telephone system is a person who works in a company, the person who is traveling in a room or the like where the terminal of the system is located, or a person who is traveling by car. When a person is in a vehicle equipped with a terminal of the above-mentioned video conference system, a conference can be held immediately by connecting to and participating in the host controller of the system.

However, when a video conference call system is mounted on a vehicle as described above, a large-sized display cannot be used, and a small-sized liquid crystal monitor must be installed. . In addition, the TV camera in the vehicle is small and simple, and the transmission and reception of such video data must be performed by a portable wireless communication device. Therefore, when actually holding a conference with this video conference system, the screen of a plurality of persons is divided and displayed on the small monitor, so that the screen becomes even smaller, and the image is not clear and the image is not clear. The response was extremely poor, and the face of the attendee could hardly be specified, and the speaker could not be specified.

On the other hand, in the above-described telephone conference system, since there is no video at all, and the voice cannot be expected to be clear enough to capture the characteristics of the utterance of the speaker, who and who can only use the voice during the conference. You can hardly tell if you are talking. Therefore, every time a participant in the meeting states his or her opinion, he must state his or her name and then speak, which is troublesome, and most of the time, active conversations that immediately put your opinion in the middle of the other party's talk There is also a problem that it is not possible to hold a meeting with sufficient contents.

Therefore, according to the present invention, even if there is no video that can identify the speaker and clear voice is not output, the position of the attendee is presumed and the audio output corresponding to the position is assumed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a virtual conference system that enables a speaker to be easily specified by performing.

[0010]

According to the present invention, there is provided a virtual meeting room seat determining means for determining a seat of an attendee in a virtual meeting room.
A sound field characteristic determining means for determining a sound transmission characteristic between the virtualized seats; a sound field control device for controlling formation of a sound field of sounds output from a plurality of speakers for a conference attendee; A communication unit that performs communication between the sound field characteristic determination unit and the sound field control device, wherein the sound field control device includes:
The virtual conference apparatus is characterized in that control is performed so as to match the sound field determined by the sound field characteristic determining means.

In another aspect, the sound field control means includes a sound field control filter provided for each speaker in accordance with attendees. .

In another aspect, the sound field characteristic determining means changes the sound field characteristic according to a change in attendees during a conference.

In another aspect, the virtual meeting room seat determining means changes the seat according to the change of the attendees during the meeting, and the sound field characteristic determining means changes the sound according to the change of the seat. The virtual conference device according to the present invention is characterized by changing a venue characteristic.

[0014] In another aspect, the sound field control device is the virtual conference device, wherein the control is performed in consideration of a propagation characteristic of a sound from each speaker to an attendant.

In another aspect, the virtual conference device is characterized in that the sound field control device is mounted on a vehicle.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing an overall overview of a virtual conference system according to the present invention, in which all the participants of the conference are on different vehicles, and each vehicle has a terminal of the virtual conference system. An example is shown in which it is communicably connected to the system host control processing device 10. The host control processor 10 of this virtual conference system
Is provided, for example, in a computer processing device in a company or in a personal computer.

As shown in FIG. 1 as an enlarged view of a vehicle A, each vehicle has a total of four (left and right) in front and rear, respectively.
Speakers, and outputs the sound of a normal audio device. When the virtual conference system according to the present invention is used, the sound adjusted by the sound field control device 20 described later is sent to each of the speakers SP1 to SP4. The sound is transmitted individually to the attendee A in the figure according to the propagation characteristics C11 to C41 from each speaker so that the attendee A can hear this sound in a controlled specific sound field. Has become.

During the conference, attendees use microphones,
A microphone 22 is prepared for the attendee A in the figure, and when the attendee A inputs a voice to the microphone 22, the signal is output to the communication unit 21. Communication unit 2
1 communicates with the host control processing device 10 of the virtual conference system of the present invention, which will be described later, transmits the voice of the attendee A, and voice data of speeches of other attendees, The sound field forming data is received. The received voice data and sound field forming data are stored in the sound field control device 2.
0, and performs audio processing by an equalizer function and an amplification function provided later, which are provided inside, and individually outputs to the speakers SP1 to SP4 in the vehicle.

Host control processor 1 of virtual conference system
No. 0 is provided with a communication unit 11 which is connected to a communication unit 21 provided in each vehicle on which the attendees are on board and transmits and receives data as described above. The receiving unit 12 in the communication unit 11 detects whether or not each communication unit 21 is connected to the system, that is, which communication unit is connected to the host control processing device 10, and thereby, the attendee The specifying unit 14 can determine the participants of the virtual conference system starting from now. Communication between the communication unit 21 of each of these vehicles and the host control processing device 10 is performed by a mobile phone line, a mobile phone line,
When the user is in a company or the like, communication can be performed using a general telephone line or the like.

When the attendees are specified, the virtual conference room seat determination unit 15 assumes a virtual conference room 30 and a conference table 31 therein, as shown in FIG. Seats for the number of attendees are arranged around it, and attendees are allocated and arranged here. In the example shown in FIG. 2, a rectangular table 31 is prepared and its seat 32 is provided.
And the seat 33 are arranged on one side, and the seat 34 is
And a seat 35 are provided. The shape of the conference room, the shape of the conference table, and the like can be arbitrarily determined in the host control processing device. Since the sound propagation characteristic from the speaker of each seat to each attendee in the virtual conference room differs depending on the arrangement shape of these seats, the characteristic value for forming the sound field is determined in accordance therewith. In consideration of such characteristics, the target characteristic determination unit 16 determines individual impulse response values as described later to determine target characteristics for forming a sound field in each vehicle.

After the seat arrangement as described above is determined,
All attendees are allocated to each seat. In the example shown in FIG. 2, the attendee A in the vehicle A
In the meantime, the attendee B in the vehicle B is seated on the seat 33 next to the attendee A, and the attendant C in the vehicle C is seated on the seat 34 in front of the attendee A and the vehicle D. In this example, the attending person D is placed in the seat next to the attending person C, that is, the seat 35 opposite to the attending person B. The arrangement of the above seats can be arbitrarily determined, and the sound field characteristics are adjusted according to the seats of the attendees arranged in advance.

In determining the sound field characteristics according to each seat, FIG. 3A shows an example in which the attendee A is a listener listening to another person's speech. Is attendee B, the impulse response value indicating the sound field characteristic for the sound source is T11. Similarly, when attendee C of the opposite seat 34 is the speaker, the impulse response value for the sound source is T21. When the attendee D of the seat 35 on the adjacent side is the speaker, the impulse response value for the sound source is T31. These impulse response values can be set by various well-known methods as a sound field specifying means, in which case the distance between the sound source and the listener, the angle between the sound source and the listener, and more detailed settings In this case, the virtual acoustic characteristics of the virtual conference room are determined in consideration of the reverberation characteristics of the room, and the virtual acoustic characteristics can be determined by including the amplitude information of the room.

Similarly, when the listener is the attendee B as shown in FIG. 3B, when the attendee A in the next seat becomes the speaker, the impulse response value for the sound source is T1.
1. When the attendee C at the opposite seat is the speaker, the impulse response value for the sound source is T12, and when the attendee D at the next seat is the speaker 3, the impulse response value for the sound source is T13. Can be determined. Similarly, when the listener is attendee C, as shown in FIG. 3C, and when the listener is attendee D, FIG.
As shown in (d), an impulse response value for each sound source when another attendee is a speaker is determined.

Regarding the impulse response values set as described above, for a specific speaker, for example, attendee A
When the speaker becomes a speaker, FIG.
Is calculated to be the impulse response value T11, similarly, the impulse response value at the listener C is T21 as shown in FIG. 3 (c), and the impulse response value at the listener D is the figure. It is calculated that it is T31 as shown in 3 (d). Hereinafter, similarly, the impulse response values for the other listeners when the attendee B becomes the speaker are calculated, and similarly when the other attendees C and D become the speakers.

As a result of the impulse response value being obtained as described above, in this virtual conference system, for example, the sound field control device 20 in the vehicle A of the attendee A performs host control processing of the impulse response value T11 for the attendee B. By setting the sound field characteristic value when received from the device 10 in advance, when the voice from the attendee B is input, the same sound field as the impulse response in the virtual conference room is transmitted to the vehicle A.
Can be formed within. As a result, when the voice of the attendee B is transmitted as being identified as belonging to the attendee B as described above, the sound field is formed so that the attendee A is on the left side of the seat where he or she is currently sitting. Can be recognized as if the voice of the attendee B is being emitted from a predetermined location.

In forming such a specific sound field, various sound field formation control means already known in audio devices can be employed, and for example, means as shown in FIG. 4 can also be employed. That is, this sound field formation control means shows a sound field control device of the vehicle A on which the attendant A is on board, and the four speakers SP1 to SP4 each have a filter group. For example, regarding the speaker SP1, a filter in which the filter coefficient W11 when the attendee B becomes the speaker 1 is set, a filter in which the filter coefficient W21 when the attendee C becomes the speaker 2 is set, and Filter coefficient W when attendee D becomes speaker 3
31 are provided, and the audio output processed by each filter is added by an adder # 1, and a speaker S
It is configured to output from P1. These filter coefficients are set so as to be filters having inverse characteristics to approximate the target characteristics.

Similarly, for speaker SP2, a filter for which filter coefficient W12 when attendee B becomes speaker 1 and a filter coefficient W22 for when attendant C becomes speaker 2 are set. A filter and a filter in which a filter coefficient W32 when the attendee D becomes the speaker 3 is provided, and the audio output processed by each filter is added by the adder # 2 and output from the speaker SP2. It is composed. Hereinafter, the same applies to the speaker SP3 and the speaker SP4, and the description thereof will be omitted.

In setting the filter coefficient at this time, the seat where the attendee A sits in the vehicle is specified in advance, for example, on the right side of the rear seat, and the sound propagation coefficient from each speaker to the attendant is specified. C11 to C41 are used as the sound field forming coefficient setting elements. Since the propagation coefficient differs for each vehicle, these values are obtained in advance for each vehicle and input to the sound field control device 20.

By using the filter group as described above, for example, when the attendee B becomes a speaker and there is no voice input from others, a voice signal processed by the filter of the filter coefficient W11 is output from the speaker SP1. Similarly, an audio signal processed by the filter of the filter coefficient W12 is output from the speaker SP2, and an audio signal processed by the filter of the filter coefficient W14 is output from the speaker SP3.

As described above, each of the attendees A can receive the impulse response value of the sound between the listener and the speaker in the virtual conference room and the four filters taking into account the sound propagation characteristics from each speaker to the listener. For example, when attendee B is the speaker, as if attendee B was seated on the seat next to attendee A on the left side of attendee A in the specific conference room, the speech output from speakers SP1 to SP4 as a whole makes a speech. Can be heard as if.

Similarly, even when the attendees C and D become speakers, they can hear as if they were speaking in the seating arrangement of the virtual conference room as shown in FIG. . As described above, since filters used by the speakers are different, in the host control processing device 10, when transmitting the voice data received by the receiving unit 12 to each attendee, the speaker specifying unit 17 specifies this, The identification data corresponding to the speaker is transmitted to the speaker identification data forming unit 18.
At the same time, the sound field control device in each attendee's terminal device specifies the speaker based on the identification data, and selects a predetermined filter according to the speaker as described above. At this time, when a plurality of attendees speak at the same time, by transmitting identification data corresponding to the speaker to each input voice data and transmitting it, the sound field control device of each attendee speaks. Filters can be selected and used according to the speakers, and the direction of each speaker can be specified even when a plurality of people speak.

Further, by equipping the attendant B, attendee C, and attendee D's vehicles with devices having the same configuration, all the persons attending this virtual conference system also have the same configuration as described above. A virtual conference as if participating in this conference can be performed with a proper seat arrangement. Thus, for example, even during this meeting, when attendee A says, "What is the point on the left of me ...", the attendee is asserting first on the left side of the person. The conference can proceed smoothly, for example, by recognizing a person who has attended.

On the other hand, during the above-mentioned conference, for example, when the attendant C has to get out of this car and go out for his business, the host control processing device 10 of FIG. Alternatively, by detecting that the attendee C has cut off the connection of the communication unit, the attendee change process in the virtual conference system is performed. At this time, the presence of the attendee C in the virtual conference room is deleted as it is, and the data is output to the sound field control devices of the attendees A, B, and D as necessary, for example, as shown in FIG. May disable the operation of the filter associated with the attendee C as the speaker 2.

However, when the number of attendees is changed from four to three, the virtual table in the virtual conference room is changed to an equilateral triangle, and the seats of the attendees are arranged on each side. It is also possible to calculate the impulse response value again as described above based on the relative positions of the attendees or to use a previously determined value and transmit the characteristic value to the sound field forming means of each attendee. Good. At this time, by changing each filter count in each sound field forming means, the user of this virtual conference system can proceed with the conference in a state where the seat arrangement is changed due to the decrease in the number of people. When the arrangement of the seats changes in this way, the data is transmitted from the host control processing device 10 and the attendees are notified by voice.

Conversely, when the number of attendees increases by one from the state in which the meeting is held by the four persons, and the meeting is to be held by a total of five persons, another position is appropriately set in the rectangular virtual table. Can be added without changing the seat position of other attendees. Alternatively, three sides of the rectangular virtual table may be arranged, and the seats may be appropriately shifted so that these persons are symmetrical.

Further, as shown in FIG. 6, for example, five attendees are evenly arranged on a virtual table on a round table, and, for example, T
11 to T41 are obtained, and based on this, the filter of the sound field control device of the attendee A is set as shown in the figure, and the same can be done as described above. In this way, it is possible to respond flexibly to a decrease or increase in the number of attendees.

In the virtual conference system that performs the above-described functions, the host control processing device 10 can perform processing according to, for example, an operation flow as shown in FIG. Hereinafter, a description will be given with reference to a system configuration diagram including the functional blocks in FIG. In the host process in the virtual conference system of the present invention, the process starts by first specifying the attendees (step S1). This is performed by the attendee identification unit 14 of the host control processing device 10 in FIG.
The attendee can identify the attendee by communicatively connecting the communication unit 21 of each vehicle to the host control processing device and registering attendance.

Next, the host control processor 10 checks whether each terminal device of the attendee is normally connected so that communication is possible, and if necessary, whether each terminal device operates normally (step S2). Thereafter, in the host control processing device 10, the virtual conference room seat determination unit 15 secures seats for the number of persons in the virtual table in the virtual conference room, and determines the seats by allocating attendees to each seat (step S).
3).

Next, the target characteristic determining unit 16 specifies the distance and direction to each other for each attendee, derives an impulse response value including the distance, angle, and amplitude information, and controls the sound field in the vehicle interior. The target characteristics are determined (Step S4). In the cabin of each attendee,
Determine the filter characteristic value according to the target characteristic,
When a speaker is specified during a conference, a filter corresponding to that speaker is selected, and sound field control becomes possible. afterwards,
It is determined whether or not the target characteristics used by the sound field control devices of all the attendees have been determined, and this is repeated until all have been determined (step S5). After all characteristic values have been determined, the values are transmitted to the sound field control device of the terminal device of the corresponding attendee (step S6).

Thereafter, at the start of the conference, the utterance of the speaker is awaited (step S7), and when there is a speaker, the speaker from which the utterance is identified is specified (step S8). This operation is performed by the speaker identification unit 17 in FIG.
In this case, the detection can be performed by detecting which of the attendee's terminal devices the voice data is transmitted from. When the speaker is specified, the host control processor 1
0 transmits the speaker's voice and the identification data of the speaker who uttered it to each attendee's terminal device (step S9).

After the transmission, for example, when a person who has participated in this conference leaves the conference, or whether there is any new person who participates in this conference, that is, whether or not the attendees have changed is determined. (Step S10) If there is a change, the process returns to Step S2, and the operation is started again by checking the device connection of each attendee in consideration of the case where the number of attendees has increased, and the same operation is repeated thereafter. Here, if there is no change in the attendees, it is determined whether or not this conference has ended (step S1).
1) If not finished, return to step S7 and wait for the next speaker. In addition, when these operations are repeated and a signal is output from the user to end the conference, or when all the terminal devices are disconnected, the conference is regarded as ended and the virtual conference is terminated. The host processing of the system ends (step S12).

On the other hand, corresponding to the host processing by the host control processing device as described above, the processing can be performed in the terminal device of each attendee according to the operation flow as shown in FIG. That is, in processing of the terminal device on the participant side,
First, a connection to this virtual conference system is made (step S21). Thereafter, a target characteristic based on the impulse response value calculated as described above is received from the host control processing device (step S22). Next, the filter characteristic value of each speaker is determined based on the received target characteristic (step S23).

With the above operation, the terminal device is brought into a normal operation state, and it is first determined whether or not the utterance of the participant using the terminal device is input from the microphone (step S24). When it is output, the sound is output from the communication unit 21 of FIG. When the transmission is completed, or when it is determined that there is no utterance in step S24, it is determined whether or not data such as voices of other speakers has been received from the host control processing device (step S26). ,
When received, the speaker is identified by the speaker identification data, the input sound is subjected to sound field control processing using the filter characteristic value of each speaker corresponding to the speaker (step S27), and output from each speaker (step S27). S2
8). If not, the process returns to step S24 to repeat the above operation.

Thereafter, it is determined whether or not a change notification of the attendee has been received from the host control processing device. When the change notification has been output, the process returns to step S22 to receive a new target characteristic from the host control processing device. Is repeated. When there is no change notification of the attendee from the host control processing device, it is determined whether or not the conference has ended by detecting the end signal of the conference (step S2).
9) If it has not been completed yet, step S24 is performed again.
And the same flow is repeated. When it is determined that the processing has been completed, the processing in the terminal device is completed.

In the above embodiment, the description has been given based on the state where the attendee of each conference is in the vehicle, which is particularly effective when the virtual conference system is used.
Naturally, it is not necessary for the attendees to be in the car, and it is possible to join the conference anywhere that has a plurality of speakers and can communicate with the outside, similar to a conventional video conference. In the above-described embodiment, the example of the telephone conference system in which the conference is performed only by the voice is described. .

[0046]

The present invention is configured as described above.
Even if there is no video that can identify the speaker or clear voice is not output, the position of the attendee is set in the virtual conference room in advance, the sound field characteristics between the attendees are determined, and the attendance is determined. By controlling the sound field so that a speaker arranged around the speaker outputs a sound field characteristic according to the position of the speaker, the speaker can be easily and clearly identified.

The sound field control means may be a virtual conference apparatus having a sound field control filter provided for each speaker corresponding to an attendant. Thus, it is possible to reliably and easily form a sound field that matches the sound field characteristics determined by the above.
Further, it is possible to easily cope with fluctuations in attendees and movement of seats in the virtual conference room.

Also, in the virtual conference apparatus wherein the sound field characteristic determining means changes the sound field characteristic in accordance with the change of the attendee during the conference, the attendee leaves during the conference,
Alternatively, even if it increases, it is possible to easily cope with the change by changing the sound field characteristics.

The virtual meeting room seat determining means changes the seat according to the change of the attendees during the meeting, and the sound field characteristic determining means changes the sound field characteristic according to the change of the seat. In the virtual meeting device, even if the attendees leave or increase during the meeting, the virtual meeting room seat determination means may rearrange the seat arrangement according to the number of attendees. By changing the sound field characteristics, it is possible to easily cope with the change.

In the virtual conference apparatus, wherein the sound field control device performs control in consideration of the sound propagation characteristics from each speaker to the attendee, the sound characteristic of the space where the attendee is present is also considered. As a result, accurate sound field characteristics can be obtained, and the position of the speaker during the conference can be more clearly identified.

Also, in a virtual conference device in which the sound field control device is mounted on a vehicle, it is difficult to identify a speaker as in a conventional video conference call because a large display cannot be installed, and it is difficult to use a video. Under conditions where the information that can be provided is limited, it becomes possible to clearly identify the position of the speaker during the conference. In addition, by diverting audio equipment used in a normal vehicle, this system can be easily mounted.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a system configuration of an embodiment in which the present invention is used as a conference system between vehicles, and functional blocks of a host control processing device.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example in which each attendee in the embodiment is arranged on a seat of a virtual table in a virtual conference room.

3A and 3B are diagrams for determining a target characteristic between attendees arranged on a seat of the virtual table, wherein FIG. 3A is viewed from a listener A, FIG. 3B is viewed from a listener B, FIG. 3C is an explanatory diagram showing a state where each target characteristic is determined, as seen from the listener C, and FIG.

FIG. 4 is a circuit configuration diagram of a sound field control device including a filter group that forms a sound field for a user so as to conform to a target characteristic based on a virtual seat arrangement in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 shows a sound field control device provided with the filter group.
It is a circuit block diagram which shows the change state in a control apparatus when attendee C leaves halfway.

FIG. 6 is a circuit configuration diagram of a sound field control device including a group of filters for forming a sound field in a state where the number of attendees of the conference is five and a conference is held in a round table virtual conference room in the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart showing an operation in the host control processing device of the virtual conference system according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an operation flowchart showing the operation in the processing device of the attendee terminal device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 10 host control processing device 11 communication unit 12 reception unit 13 transmission unit 14 attendee identification unit 15 virtual conference room seat determination unit 16 target characteristic determination unit 17 speaker identification unit 18 speaker identification data formation unit 20 sound field control device 21 communication Unit 22 microphone

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A virtual conference room seat determining means for determining a seat of an attendee in a virtual conference room; a sound field characteristic determining means for determining a virtual sound transmission characteristic between the respective seats; A sound field control device for controlling formation of a sound field of sounds output from a plurality of speakers, and communication means for performing communication between the sound field characteristic determination means and the sound field control device. A virtual conference device, wherein the field control device performs control so as to match the sound field determined by the sound field characteristic determining means. 2. The virtual conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sound field control means includes a sound field control filter provided for each speaker corresponding to the attendee. 3. The virtual conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sound field characteristic determining unit changes the sound field characteristic according to a change in attendees during the conference. 4. The virtual conference room seat determining means changes a seat according to a change in attendees during a conference, and the sound field characteristic determining means changes a sound field characteristic according to the change in the seat. The virtual conference device according to claim 1, wherein: 5. The virtual conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sound field control apparatus performs control in consideration of a sound propagation characteristic from each speaker to an attendee. 6. The virtual conference device according to claim 1, wherein the sound field control device is mounted on a vehicle.