An open-access interactive textbook for teaching room acoustics modeling

Abstract

There are several different techniques for modeling room acoustics. Interactive visualizations can be used to ease learning the main principles and algorithms for that. This presentation will demonstrate a new interactive open-access textbook aiming to support learning the basics of room acoustics modeling techniques. The visualizations illustrate how different algorithms work in simple 2-D geometries, and what are the underlying assumptions in each of them. Interactivity here means that the students have control over both various parameters that affect the modeling performance and accuracy, and the geometries. They can study how the modeling results change in response to such changes. The main emphasis here is on geometrical room acoustics, and the techniques based on that: image-source model, ray-tracing, and acoustic radiance transfer, but the longer term aim is to cover all the main room acoustic modeling principles and techniques.