Aeolus is a powerful acoustic modelling plugin that has been specifically developed to analyse and optimise acoustic shells. The plugin is based on the Image Source method, which simulates sound propagation within architectural volumes by computing the sound reflection paths and associated sound pressure levels (SPLs) at one or multiple target locations. This simulation requires the specification of a reflection order, i.e. the number of times a sound ray bounces off acoustic reflectors. Aeolus was originally developed as a part of the master's thesis "Computational Morphogenesis and construction of an acoustic shell for outdoor chamber music" by Gabriele Mirra and Eduardo Pignatelli, completed at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) in 2015. The plugin has been used to design and optimise the acoustic shell "ReS", which is annually built for the classical music festival "Villa Pennisi in Musica" in Acireale, Italy.
Features
Aeolus allows the user to assign a sound source object with the directivity values of 15 different musical instruments and analyse the acoustic response in the frequency spectrum. The plugin also provides fine control of the simulation accuracy, allowing for single or multi-objective optimisation via Genetic Algorithms. Additionally, the user can sort simulation outputs using the index of a sound source, target/receiver location, reflective surface, or octave band.
Limitations
Aeolus cannot be used to construct a complete Impulse-Response (IR) graph due to the computational cost of the Image Source method. In the future, the plugin will be integrated with a Ray Tracing algorithm to approximate the IR graph and compute acoustic parameters such as Reverberation Time, Sound Clarity, and Sound Definition. Similarly, if your model consists of NURBS, tessellate it into a set of planar surfaces before running the simulation, as Aeolus computes reflection paths for input geometry constructed from planar surfaces.
Getting started
To help you get started, please refer to the demo file. Video tutorials will be released soon. Finally, I am pleased to announce that Aeolus will be officially presented at the IASS 2023 conference during a workshop co-directed by Sofia Colabella, Alberto Pugnale, Michael Mack and myself.
If you are interested in learning more about Aeolus, you can check out these publications:
- Mirra G., Pignatelli E., and S. Pone. Computational Morphogenesis and construction of an acoustic shell for outdoor chamber music, Proceedings of the IASS Annual Symposium 2016 “Spatial Structures in the 21st Century”, Tokyo, Japan, 26-30 September 2016
- Mirra G., Pignatelli E. and S. Di Rosario. An automated design methodology for acoustic shells in outdoor concerts, Proceedings of the Euronoise 2018 conference, Hersonissos, Crete, 27-31 May 2018
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