Better Acoustics & Workflows with the Treble Web Application

Author: Ólafur Hafstein Pjetursson,
Senior Product Manager - Treble Technologies

As a product manager at Treble, I’ve had the unique opportunity to help shape the development of our acoustic simulation platform from the ground up. Having spent close to a decade working as a consultant, collaborating with other designers, engineers, and architects, I’ve experienced firsthand the challenges of integrating acoustic analysis into fast-moving design workflows. This blog series is a chance to share some of the thinking, decisions, and innovations behind the Treble Web Application, insights drawn not only from our internal development process, but also from real-world feedback and use cases from across the industry.

When we started developing Treble, we kept hearing the same two frustrations from acoustic engineers, AV designers and others in the world of acoustics:

· The design workflow was cumbersome. Simulations took too long to set up, run and analyse. They were also detached from the larger design process, such as the architect’s workflow. This led to a lack of efficiency and unnecessary costs in the design process.

· Their current technology limited what kind of simulation could be ran . Examples include simulations in large spaces taking too long due to limited computational efficiency, phase information being lost after the first reflection when simulating loudspeakers, complex geometries and those where wave-based effects were important were impossible or expensive to simulate and so on.

Treble’s goal is to solve both of those challenges.  We don’t see us as only building a simulation engine. We are trying to solve real, everyday problems for our users, both in terms of workflow and simulation capabilities.

The Problems We Wanted to Solve:

Better workflow

In my experience as a consultant the acoustic design and coordination of a project can broadly be split into two categories:

· The coordination between different stakeholders in the design process – I.e. communication between different disciplines or between different members of the acoustical/av design team

· Workflow within the simulation software itself – I.e. user interface and quality of life features

Both aspects are critical for optimized designs and Treble’s goal from the beginning has been to innovate on both fronts.

When it comes to workflow between different stakeholders, one of the the key problems we identified was how detached acoustics is from the BIM workflow. There are multiple reasons for that but one of the consequences is that time for simulations can’t always be allocated until the building design is more or less completed. As a result, the acoustic design often lags behind in the design process. This can lead to missed opportunities and additional inertia, as the acoustician can be forced to make critical suggestions late in the process. At that time other disciplines are often further along and have their designs set in stone, meaning that any acoustic design decisions leading to major changes are not always easy to facilitate.

The first major step we have taken in alleviating this issue was introduced in our latest February update through the IFC imports combined with automatic geometry simplification. The vision behind the feature is clear. That you can take a Revit model from the architect and import it directly into Treble without having to create a specific acoustic model. Treble will extract every space separately and simplify interior objects such as furniture, so that each space is ready for acoustic simulations without requiring additional work.

The launch of the feature has been a success. We will, however, continue development on it until it’s as close to perfect as possible. Currently it’s optimized for geometrical acoustic simulations, but the future will bring improvements to other aspects of the feature. Look forward to a more detailed blog post about the current and future state of the feature soon.

When it comes to workflow within the tool, the following set of challenges were part of what we initially set out to address:

· Despite the complex underlying physics engine, the user interface must be designed so that the tool is easy to use and to master

· The ability to run multiple simulations at a time is important due to the iterative nature of the design process.

· In the same vein, calculation speed is important so that as much time as possible can be spent analysing results instead of waiting

· Comparing the results of different simulations should be intuitive.

· Sharing results with team members, either collaborators or reviewers should be built into the tool

Solutions to these challenges are built into the Web Application in one form or another.

· We have a team of experts who focus on the design and implementation of a streamlined user experience at every step of the journey. We have taken cues from our users, our internal experience and industry standard tools in different disciplines to tie everything together in a modern and sleek user interface.

· The cloud-based nature of the tool makes it possible to run as many simulations at a time as a user desires, without any slowdowns. All the while boasting the fastest geometrical acoustic solver and wave-based solver on the market.

· Within Treble you can easily compare different simulations, making it easy to evaluate different designs. You can store and share these projects and results with your team members, allowing for seamless team collaboration.

· We offer a designated ‘Viewer seat’ as a part of our offering, allowing free access to the tool to those who don’t need to simulate but might benefit from reviewing or overseeing the designs of others.

Simulation Technology

At the heart of the Treble Web Application are the acoustical solvers. Our design goal has been to cater to a wide range of different simulation scenarios. Following is a list of what is unique to Treble’s offering:

· Extremely fast geometrical acoustics solver that can handle huge models and complex geometries, such as high-resolution curved surfaces, without slowdowns. Treble is not only a wave-based tool, many of our users leverage the geometrical acoustic solver primarily. This is a use case we strongly encourage. We believe in giving you the ability to decide what kind of analysis to run.

· Highly accurate wave based solver for when accuracy in the low-mid frequency response is of importance. The wave solver also gives you the ability to accurately simulate wave-influenced phenomena such as diffraction, 2d sound fields, coupled spaces and mode shapes, without compromises.

· The ability to run the two solvers either individually or combined.

· Reflected phase information calculated for the whole spectrum, both in the wave-based and geometrical acoustic solvers. Allowing you to accurately analyse the interference between different speakers and other effects such as comb filtering.

· Angle dependent absorption for both solvers. This and reflected phase information are possible because we take advantage of more accurate boundary absorption modelling than many other tools on the market. Our user interface allows users to set up simulations using absorption coefficients, which we then convert to impedance under the hood using our advanced conversion engine. This, along with our advanced solvers, allows us to do these calculations while not requiring any familiarity with impedance or FEM meshing from our users.

· Easy to set up auralizations that can be shared with clients though the web.

· A range of built in visual analysis features such as reflection tracking, modal analysis and parameter heatmaps.

Why It All Matters:

We believe that good simulation software shouldn’t just be technically powerful. It should feel like it’s working with you, not against you. When acoustic simulations become easier and faster, they can happen earlier in the design process, which leads to better outcomes, fewer surprises later on, and more confident decisions.

More robust simulation capabilities allow you to simulate more diverse range of rooms, allowing for the integration of simulations, and by extension more enlightened decision making, into more projects. 

A Real World Example:

One of our early adopters, Acentech, mentioned recently that they were able to cut down their typical room acoustics simulation time by a factor of 10 by employing Treble on projects. They noted the speed of the geometrical solvers, new simulation possibilities given by the wave based solver and continuous release cadence as their primary drivers for adopting Treble.

If you’re curious about the Treble Web Application we’d love to hear from you. We’re continuing to learn and improve, and your insights are what shape the future of the product. Look forward to more technical blog posts soon, going into the various aspects mentioned in this blog in more detail.