I went for a nice walk through the woods to go to the grocery store this afternoon, and a strange concept popped into my head, a tonoscope in 3 dimensions.

I pondered for a bit what the 3rd dimension would be if represented using the current tonoscope method. What would the third axis be? Perhaps moving the music/harmonic over a series of speakers, moving the sound in physical space?

That still leaves a problem: The fact that there is a huge (uh, infinite?) number of 2 dimensional tonoscope images contained within the shape. How would those be represented in the sonic plane?

I then realized that perhaps I was viewing the concept from the wrong angle. A 3d tonoscope would work by viewing the relation of particles to sound vibration in a 3d space. I saw a computer simulation of a room filled with "virtual particles" which reacted to a source. The source could be a few different things: A typical "speaker" source", a mathematical equation that produces a 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional shape that changes over time. The only thing is the room itself: infinite size? absorption of sound in the virtual walls?

I also thought of a relation between sound and colour, perhaps when a particle is "hit" by a certain wave, it could change to a colour based on the frequency that hit it?

Just thought I would spill out my afternoon brainstorm onto this wonderful tribe.

-Ed