Trace sound rays through 2D concert hall floor plans. This simulation uses geometric acoustics (image-source / ray tracing) to model early reflections, compute reverberation time RT60, and visualise the echogram that shapes how music sounds in a room.
Sound behaves like rays at high frequencies. Rays reflect off walls following the law of reflection (angle in = angle out). Energy decays with each reflection depending on wall absorption. The pattern of arrivals at the listener defines the room's acoustic signature — its impulse response.
Choose a hall shape: Shoebox (Boston Symphony Hall), Fan-Shaped (typical auditorium), or Vineyard (Berlin Philharmonie). Click or drag to move the source (red) and receiver (green). Adjust absorption, ray count, and bounce limit, then press Trace.
Wallace Clement Sabine, the father of architectural acoustics, discovered that reverberation time is proportional to room volume divided by total absorption area: RT60 = 0.161 V / A. His 1895 measurements at Harvard's Fogg Museum launched the science of room acoustics.