Acoustic simulations with a ray-tracing program: Reporting an experience

Abstract

The possibility of exporting to ray-tracing type programs the geometry generated by Auto-Cad, is very appealing for the architect who wishes to simulate the acoustic behavior of a room. It was found that a good knowledge of room acoustic is necessary for the selection of the program parameters and the objective acoustical measures outputted by the program for the assessment of the required acoustical quality. There is scarce information on the absorption coefficients of lining materials, but it is on the choice of the diffusion coefficients where lie the greatest uncertainties. Because of the considerable impact that these data have on the computational results, the user may feel insecure about the results of his efforts. Therefore it is advisable that trained personnel participate in the efficient use of this computational tool. It was found however that one form of the output of the program, that in which the acoustical parameters are color mapped, have qualitatively corroborated speech intelligibility results objectively measured in the field. (To be presented in Portuguese.)