ODEON 16 Features
The new version 16 was released in Spring 2020. The headings will specify what editions of ODEON: (B) Basics, (I) Industrial, (A) Auditorium and (C) Combined, the feature is available in. If not specified, then it is available for all editions.
- Improved Reflectogram and 3D reflection-paths / Active-sources display (A)(C)
- Improved Decay Curve – intensity hedgehogs (A)(C)
- Improved sweep-measurement tool
- 3D Matrix (I)(C)
- Support of ambisonic measurements (A)(C)
- Play it! An improved tool for auralisation of measurements(A)(C)
- Material Archive in the Materials List
- Source Macro
- Source/Receiver align tool
- Improved CAD import
- Improved methods for headphone calibration (A)(C)
- Enhanced 3D Billiard (I)(A)(C)
- Support for drawing layers in the 3DEdit source displays
- Support for editing and defining new sources/receivers
- Reading of EASE directivity files.
- Ruler functionality in the 3DView
- Ruler functionality implemented in the 3D Edit Source Receiver view
- Strength (G) parameter, according to ISO3382-1 (A)(C)
- New parameters: G_early and G_late (A)(C)
- ISO 3382-3 and ISO 14257 parameters
- Background noise level in 3DGrid
Improved Reflectogram and 3D reflection-paths / Active-sources display (A)(C)
The Reflectogram in the Single Point Response display has been greatly improved. It is possible to have the selected reflection or all the zoomed reflections displayed in 3D next to the Reflectogram, the 3D display is automatically updated when zooming or scrolling the Reflectogram graph to reflect the reflection currently visible. The reflection(s) can be coloured according to time of arrival or to reflection order. The colour scale can be selected by the user to be Auto, Music, Speech or Studio.
Improved Decay Curve – intensity hedgehogs (A)(C)
The Decay curve tabsheet of the Single Point Response has been enhanced to display direction of arrival of intensity components, 3D hedgehog graphs, and allow tracing intensity components in the 3D View. The Decay curve for the selected band in the Single Point Response can be displayed next to the 3D View. This allows watching the direction of intensity peaks/slices inside the room model. It is possible to scroll through the peaks/slices in the intensity curve and see where each individual peak/slice comes from or to show a complete hedgehog for the intensity curve. When the curve is zoomed, the 3D display shows the corresponding part of the hedgehog. This is an invaluable tool for tracking down e.g. late echoes which cannot be identified in the Reflectogram.
Improved sweep-measurement tool
The Measure Impulse Response tool has been greatly enhanced. A sweep spectrum correction can be applied in order to obtain similar decay ranges in all active octave bands. If a measurement has obtained poor decay range in some octaves, then ODEON can calculate corrections to the sweep based on that measurement. The result is a sweep where less measurement time is spent on the octaves with high decay range and more time is spent on the octaves where poor decay range was obtained.
The improved tool also allows up to 1st order ambisonic measurements (4-channels), which is fully compatible with the improved load impulse response tool (described below).
3D Matrix (I)(C)
The 3D Matrix tool calculates and displays room acoustics parameters of all point sources on the positions of all the other point source positions. The tool makes it easy to see the effect of a given point source on all other point source positions and can be an efficient tool for investigations of an open plan office or in an orchestra. The 3D Diagonal displays the parameters calculated at the positions of the sources them self (excluding the direct sound which obviously can’t be calculated at a distance of 0 meters). This can be useful for evaluation of e.g. how loud or intelligible one’s own voice sounds at a given position in the room.
Support of ambisonic measurements (A)(C)
The Measured Impulse Response tool can now recognize the 4 channels measured with an ambisonic microphone and visualize the intensity components of an impulse response. The four channels appear as W (omni) and X, Y, Z.
Play it! An improved tool for auralization of measurements(A)(C)
The Play it! tool (in the last Tabsheet of the Measured Impulse Response) makes it possible to listen to the measured impulse response as well as to listen to a signal convolved with the same impulse response. This makes it possible to hear how the room measured sounds at the given measurement position with the given source(s). ODEON applies a new frequency dependent noise removal algorithm which removes the noise floor individually for each octave band of the impulse response, rather than just at what appears to be the broad band noise floor. This results in a much cleaner impulse response for auralization.
Virtual Dummy head! When viewing a measured (or simulated) 1st order B-Format impulse response, ODEON decodes the 4 channel B-format file into a binaural impulse response allowing play back of the impulse response over headphones as well as binaural playback of a signal convolved with this binaural impulse response. It is possible to transform the impulse response so one can listen to the impulse response coming from any direction e.g. from front, 45o left front or from 90o degrees left side. Echo problems are more audible when hearing them from the side rather than from in front. So being able to change listener orientation, can be valuable when listening to binaural playback.
Material Archive in the Materials List
A Material Archive functionality has been added to the Materials List. This allows to restore previous material configurations (without losing the current one). ODEON keeps a list of the last 10 material configurations ordered by date and with an optional description (such as “ceiling absorber and extra absorption on side wall”). The description(s) can be entered in the yellow field in the material list or in the Material archive display.
Source Macro
The Source macro in the Source-receiver list has been improved making it possible to align source positions relative to surfaces (e.g. to position musicians 1.2 metres above the floor) and making it possible to orient sources relative to a receiver (e.g. to make all musicians look at the conductor).
Source/Receiver align tool
A new align tool allows aligning a source or a receiver relative to another source or receiver e.g. putting a receiver 2 metres from the source at an angle of 45°.
Improved CAD import
The renovated interface has better support for AutoCAD drawings, accepting a large variety of CAD file formats.
- AutoCAD own DWG format is supported directly, so no need to ask for the models to be exported to the DXF format, although ODEON supports that as well. At the same time, we have added a much higher support for the CAD entities that can be included in an AutoCAD file – BLOCKS, REGIONS, 3DSOLID, surfaces defined from POLILINE etc. are directly supported by ODEON – press OK and off you go
- Geometry formats supported by ODEON 16 are; .dxf, .3ds, .stl, .obj .step, .iges, .ply.
Improved methods for headphone calibration (A)(C)
With the installation also come measured headphone responses for the following inexpensive headphones allowing compensation for their frequency response: AKGK72, AKGK240studio, Behringer HPS3000, Roland RH5 and Shure SRH240A. These responses have been averaged over a number of repeated measurements with repositioning of headphones for optimum compensation.
Enhanced 3D Billiard (I)(A)(C)
The enhanced 3D Billiard supports visualization of absorption in 3D.
Support for drawing layers in the 3DEdit source displays
The feature allows some parts of geometry to be removed from printouts and graphics exchange and while editing source positions.
Support for editing and defining new sources/receivers
It is possible to edit a source/receiver by clicking directly in the 3DEditSource display. Use CTRL+ RMB to open the context-sensitive menu and create a source or receiver.
Reading EASE directivity files in the Source Editor
ODEON 16 recognizes EASE files directly in the point source editor. Simply paste your .lob and .spk files from the EASE software into the Directivity Files folder (or any subfolder in it). Then open the point source editor. The files will be shown there.
Ruler functionality in the 3DView
The tool can be used for indication of distance between points, and especially between corner points in the geometry. Press “m” to enable the modeling options, which allows the ruler functionality.
Ruler functionality implemented in the 3D Edit Source Receiver view
For indication of distance between sources and receivers. The tool makes it easy to see the distance between source and receiver, source and source or receiver and receiver.
Strength (G) parameter, according to ISO3382-1 (A)(C)
The G parameter used to be expressed as SPL under certain conditions, which has proven to be confusing when looking at results. Since ODEON 16 it is explicitly included as a room acoustic parameter in the Room Acoustics Parameter List. The G parameter is calculated in simulations if there is only one active source in the job of interest and that source is Omni directional (if the directivity file assigned is contains the word omni). The source power assigned to the source is not important -ODEON will automatically normalize the results of the G-calculations to 31 dB source power per octave, as required by ISO3381-1. This means that it is possible to calculate e.g. absolute SPL values in a Job simultaneously with G and that the G parameter will be listed by its correct name. If the requirements for the G calculation are not meet then the results for G will be empty.
When opening a simulation from previous versions, make sure you load the new parameters by clicking on “Load factory default” as shown in the figure below.
New parameters: G_early and G_late (A)(C)
G_early is the energy of G that arrives within 80 ms after the direct sound. G_late is the energy of G that arrives later than 80 ms after the direct sound.
In addition, in ODEON Auditorium and Combined, a Late Lateral G parameter (L_j) is defined.
ISO 3382-3 and ISO 14257 parameters
To avoid confusion, parameters according to ISO 3382-3 (Open plan offices) and ISO 14257 (work rooms) are only calculated and displayed as part of the Multipoint response results if the following conditions are met:
- ISO3382-3_OMNI.SO8 directivity has been assigned to the active source.
- There is only one source active.
Background noise level in 3DGrid
In the 3DGrid it is possible to transfer the estimated average SPL of the currently displayed grid to the Background noise level in the Room Setup. This is useful when a realistic background noise level needs to be defined in order to estimate speech intelligibility (STI). To do so, a job has to be defined with the appropriate active noise sources in order to estimate the SPL as the background noise. When the grid has been calculated open the 3DGrid, select the Fractiles tabsheet and press the S shortcut.
