Acoustic Visualization Renderer
Overview
This acoustic renderer simulates sound propagation in a 3D space, allowing users to visualize how sound waves interact with objects. It is designed to be simple and efficient, making it suitable for educational purposes and basic acoustic simulations. The renderer uses a Kirchhoff integral equation approach to model sound propagation, which is a common method in acoustics for calculating the sound field around objects.
There is an example render above of a cube excited by monopole sound source with a plane below the cube that samples the sum of incident and reflected sound waves in the near field. The phase of the acoustic waves is represented by the color of the surface, where the amplitude is visualized by the brightness of the surface. The renderer can handle multiple sound sources and objects, allowing for complex acoustic scenarios to be simulated. The user can interact with the simulation by adjusting parameters such as the position and frequency of sound sources, the properties of the objects in the scene, and the acoustic properties of the medium.
Technology Stack
The acoustic renderer is built using C++ and leverages the Nvidia CUDA and Optix frameworks for high-performance computing and rendering. Optix provided the collision detection and ray tracing capabilities, while CUDA was used for parallel processing of the acoustic calculations. This combination allows for efficient simulation of sound propagation in complex environments, making it possible to visualize acoustic phenomena. A Docker container is provided to run the renderer, which can be used on AWS for cost effective batch scene rendering.
Python scripting is used to generate the scene and sound source parameters, allowing for easy customization and automation of the rendering process.Target Echo Strength (TES) values can can calculated and graphed by providing the location of field points.
Programming Languages:
- C++, C, Python
Framework:
- Nvidia CUDA and Optix
Acoustic Model:
- Discrete Kirchhoff Integral Equation