Room Acoustic Simulations
Ensuring good room acoustics and low noise is absolutely necessary in buildings, as we spend about 90% of our time indoors. The sense of hearing is generally speaking the second most important sense, and the European Union and the World Health Organization define noise as the second biggest environmental hazard [1,2]. Good acoustic conditions are basic requirements in many modern buildings.
Trustworthy acoustic simulations are a valuable tool to make this happen. We can predict how the building will sound even before the building is constructed/renovated in the design and renovation phase. Many building certificate systems promote acoustic conditions as one of the key performances of new buildings. All landmark buildings and acoustically critical buildings, such as concert halls, undergo many acoustic simulations to optimize the choice and location of the sound absorbing materials used to achieve the required acoustic criteria.
There are many sound simulation tools commercially available, most of which adopt geometrical acoustics (GA) approaches. Treble is a hybrid room acoustic simulation tool that combines accurate wave-based (WB) simulations at low frequencies, to capture the important wave and modal behavior, and GA simulations at high frequencies, to take advantage of the fast calculations. Treble is the first room acoustic software that hybridizes the WB and GA methods, which has been long wanted in the acoustics community.
This hybrid approach brings a lot of value to you as the benefits of both worlds, accuracy and speed, can now be freely harnessed. Another key value that Treble provides is an enhanced auralizer that allows you and whoever you share the auralization with to hear the acoustics of a space interactively (including head rotation and switching from scene A to B). This technical document will provide you with scientific evidence and references of the state-of-the-art Treble software.
References
[1] World Health Organization, Environmental noise guidelines for the European region, 2018, https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/9789289053563 (visited in Aug. 2023)
[2] European Union, Environmental noise policy, https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/noise_en (visited in Aug. 2023)