How does sound look like? Psychedelic sound patterns of whales, birds, and insects

Apr 22, 2013

Are you wondering how sound looks like?

Look at these psychedelic sound patterns of whales, birds, and insects!

An image of White beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) sounds

You might wonder what these kaleidoscope photographs are. These represent the sounds of different mammals, birds and insects living on Earth.

The pattern made by the sound of the False killer whale

Yes amazing! But how are the images created? Accoustic pressure signals are time-series data which can be analyzed and decomposed into useful quantities.

The sounds of the Chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina).

To produce these colorful screenshots, Mark Fischer uses a wavelet transform, which represents a signal with a series of wavelets rather than sinusoids and then colors them with an imaging software.

Five-petalled: The sounds of the white beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) create this beautiful blue flower graph

Another song of the white beaked dolphin creates this blue flower graph

Mark Fischer does not cut-and-paste or create any symmetry, but tries to represent the sound of the whale or dolphin as honestly as it can be done.

This graph shows the familiar chirping sound of crickets

Each color represents a different frequency: Reds for low frequency, greens and blues for medium frequencies, and violets for the highest frequencies.

Here another graph visualises the common insect’s much-loved sound

It is after an inspiring trip with a whale researcher, that Mr Fischer started capturing the sounds back in 2001.

Low frequency: The deep song of the Northern minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) makes this warm looking image like the flames from a gas cooker.