Sound modeling issues in interactive sonification - From basic contact events to synthesis and manipulation tools

The work presented in this thesis ranges over a variety of research topics, spacing from human-computer interaction to physical-modeling. What combines such broad areas of interest is the idea of using physically-based computer simulations of acoustic phenomena in order to provide human-computer interfaces with sound feedback which is consistent with the user interaction. In this regard, recent years have seen the emergence of several new disciplines that go under the name of -- to cite a few -- auditory display, sonification and sonic interaction design. This thesis deals with the design and implementation of efficient sound algorithms for interactive sonification. To this end, the physical modeling of everyday sounds is taken into account, that is sounds not belonging to the families of speech and musical sounds.