Computer models in room acoustics: The ray tracing method and the auralization algorithms

Computer algorithms are described for constructing virtual acoustic models of various rooms that should satisfy some specific sound quality criteria. The algorithms are based on the ray tracing method, which, in the general case, allows calculation of the amplitude of an acoustic ray that survived multiple reflections from arbitrary curved surfaces. As a result, calculations of room acoustics are reduced to tracing the trajectories of all the acoustic rays in the course of their propagation with multiple reflections from reflecting surfaces to the point of their complete decay. For this approach to be used, the following physical properties of a room should be known: the geometry of the reflecting surfaces, the absorption and diffusion coefficients on each of these surfaces, and the decay law for rays propagating in air. The proposed models allow for the solution of the important problem of architectural acoustics called the auralization problem, i.e., to predict how any given audio segment will sound in any given hall on the basis of computer simulation alone, without any full-scale testing in specific halls.