Spatial Audio Mapper — Help & Troubleshooting Guide

Welcome! This guide covers everything you need to get the most out of Spatial Audio Mapper on Apple Vision Pro, plus fixes for the most common issues people run into.

If you don’t find an answer here, email info@mickeydesigns.com and include:

• The version of Spatial Audio Mapper you’re running
• Your visionOS version (Settings › General › About)
• A short description of what you were doing when the issue happened

What the app does

Spatial Audio Mapper turns the room you’re in into an interactive acoustics visualization. You scan your space with LiDAR, tap real surfaces to drop spatial audio sources, and watch their wave particles travel and bounce around your actual room — including showing you where the waves from two sources collide as interference nodes.

It’s part teaching tool, part demo of what spatial computing can do that nothing else can.

Getting started

1. Open the app

Launch Spatial Audio Mapper from the Home View. You’ll see the main control window with a header, an Open Immersive Space button, and a few settings sections.

2. Open the immersive space

Tap Open Immersive Space. A prompt will appear that says:

Look around to scan your room

Slowly look around your environment so the device can map walls, floor, and ceiling using LiDAR. As geometry is reconstructed, a faint wireframe will appear over your surroundings.

Tip: A slow, deliberate scan works better than darting your eyes around. Aim your gaze at each major wall, the floor, and the ceiling once.

3. Tap a surface to place a source

Once you see the wireframe, tap any wall, floor, or ceiling. A colored sphere appears at the exact point you tapped and immediately begins:

• Playing a spatial audio tone from that location
• Emitting glowing wave particles outward

That’s it — you’re mapping your room’s sound.

Placing and editing sound sources

Choosing the starting color

In the main window, the New source section has a Color picker. Whatever color is selected there is the color of the next source you place. Existing sources are not affected.

Selecting a source

Tap any placed source to select it. A ring lights up around it and the Selected source panel appears in the main window.

Editing a selected source

From the Selected source panel you can:

• Change its color — applied instantly to the sphere and its wave particles.
• Adjust its frequency — slide between 80 Hz (low) and 1200 Hz (high). Audio and the wave pulse rate update live.
• Delete it — removes the source and its waves.
• Deselect — clears the selection without changing the source.

Removing sources

• Delete one — select it and tap Delete source.
• Delete all — tap Clear All in the Placed sources section of the main window.

The 6-source limit

You can have up to 6 sources placed at once. Each source produces many physics-driven particles, so this limit keeps the visualization smooth and the audio mix clean. If you’ve already placed 6, an orange warning appears, and you’ll need to delete one before placing another.

Understanding the waves and interference nodes

Wave particles

Each source emits bursts of particles that travel outward at a fixed visual speed. The particles aren’t decorative — they physically bounce off the room mesh you scanned, mimicking how real sound reflects off real walls.

Higher-frequency sources pulse out particles more often. Lower-frequency sources pulse more slowly.

Interference nodes

When wave particles from two different sources cross paths, you’ll see a small white flash at that point. This marks an interference node — the spatial-computing analog of where two real sound waves would constructively or destructively interfere.

Try this: place two sources of similar frequency on opposite walls and watch the flashes line up between them.

Audio & output controls

In the main window’s Output section:

• Spatial audio — toggle on/off to mute or unmute all sources without removing them. Their visualization keeps running.
• Show sound waves — toggle off to hide the wave particles and focus only on the audio. Sources still emit and you can still hear them.

These two toggles are independent — you can run audio-only, visualization-only, both, or neither.

Troubleshooting

The wireframe never appears

The room isn’t being mapped. Try, in order:

1. Make sure you’ve granted the world-sensing permission when prompted at first launch.
2. Look slowly around the room — direct your gaze at each wall, the floor, and the ceiling at least once.
3. Make sure the room is reasonably well lit. LiDAR works in low light, but the visual passthrough that helps the device understand the room benefits from normal lighting.
4. Stand a few feet from any wall when starting — extremely close-up surfaces can be hard for the device to map.
5. Close the immersive space (toggle the button off) and reopen it to restart the scan.

My tap doesn’t place a source

A few possibilities:

• You haven’t scanned enough yet. If no wireframe is visible at the tap location, that surface hasn’t been reconstructed yet. Look at it for a moment first.
• You’re at the source limit. If “Placed sources: 6 / 6” is shown with an orange warning, delete a source first.
• You’re tapping too fast. A 0.4-second debounce prevents accidental duplicates from a double-tap. Wait briefly and tap again.
• You’re tapping an existing source. That selects it instead of placing a new one. Tap a clear area of a wall, floor, or ceiling.

I can’t hear anything

1. Check the Spatial audio toggle in the Output section — make sure it’s on.
2. Check Apple Vision Pro’s system volume using the Digital Crown.
3. Confirm at least one source is placed and that you haven’t muted via the system controls.
4. If a frequency was set very low, walk closer to the source — extreme low frequencies can feel quiet on the built-in speakers.
5. Try removing all sources and placing a new one — this resets the audio engine state for that source.

The audio sounds like it’s coming from the wrong place

The audio is anchored to the exact 3D point you tapped. If a source seems off:

• Confirm you’re hearing that source and not one in another part of the room.
• Walk around it — true spatial audio shifts as you move; if it doesn’t, restart the immersive space.
• If you’re wearing AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones, make sure Spatial Audio with head tracking is enabled in Control Center.

Wave particles look choppy or stutter

• Reduce the number of placed sources. 6 is the maximum, but very busy rooms or many low-frequency sources at once can be heavier than just a few.
• Toggle Show sound waves off and on to reset the visualization system.
• Close the immersive space and reopen it.

Interference flashes never appear

Interference nodes only appear where particles from two different sources physically cross. If you only have one source placed, you’ll never see one. Place at least two sources and give the particles a moment to travel and meet — flashes are most common in the space between sources.

The source I deleted is still making sound

Close and reopen the immersive space. If the issue persists, force-quit the app from the Home View and relaunch. Please email support with your visionOS version if this happens repeatedly.

The app crashes on launch

1. Restart Apple Vision Pro (hold the top button and Digital Crown until you see the power slider).
2. Make sure visionOS is up to date (Settings › General › Software Update).
3. Delete and reinstall the app.
4. If it still crashes, contact support with your visionOS version.

The “Open Immersive Space” button does nothing

Another immersive app may already own the space. Close any other immersive experiences from the Home View, then try again.

Privacy

Spatial Audio Mapper uses the room scan only at runtime, only to:

• Render the wireframe overlay
• Determine where you tapped
• Let wave particles bounce off real surfaces

Nothing is recorded, saved, or transmitted. There is no account system, no analytics, and no third-party tracking. The app does not make any network requests.

Contact

Questions, bug reports, or feature ideas:

info@mickeydesigns.com

Please include your visionOS version, the app version, and a short description of what you were doing when the issue happened — that gets you a useful reply fastest.