Introduction

Klapp is a plugin for Autodesk® Revit® that simulates the propagation of sound waves inside a selected Room in a Revit project. It allows the user to compute and analyze the acoustical properties of any Room as early as the design phase of the project.

The plugin is a powerful tool that uses the principles of geometrical acoustics to conduct the sound wave propagation simulation. In its core functionality, it can be compared with specialized room acoustics simulation software, such as Odeon and Sarooma.

Klapp is developed as part of Project BG 16RFOP002-2.024-0089 “Promotion of entrepreneurship in MAULBEER Ltd", financed by the Operational Programme “Innovation and competitiveness” 2014-2020, co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund.

Functionality and Features

Klapp simulates the propagation of sound waves between an omni-directional Sound Source and a specified Observation Point inside the selected Room. The Room, Sound Source and Observation Point can be freely selected by the user. After the simulation is completed Klapp presents the acoustical characteristics of the selected Room at the Observation Point.
Klapp calculates the properties of the sound at a particular point (observation point), given a defined static sound source that is not the same point as the observation point. Both points must be inside the selected virtual sound space (room).

In other words, Klapp computes how the sound produced by the sound source is altered by the sound space when “listening” at the specified observation point. A practical example where all this can be applied is in designing conference rooms. Klapp can compute how well a listener in the audience (observation point) can hear the speaker at the podium (sound source) when attending a talk in the conference room (sound space).

The main features of Klapp are:

• Allows Revit users to analyze the acoustic properties of the designed rooms.
• Applies the principles of geometrical acoustics to produce perceptually plausible room acoustics simulation results.
• Clean and intuitive user interface, giving users the ability to use the plugin without needing extensive knowledge in the field of acoustics.

Limitations

Klapp is a complex plugin that aims to extend Revit functionality in a new direction. Although we are continuously improving it, it still has several limitations to its functionality. Please, check Section 2 (Before Using Klapp) and Section 4 (Known Limitations) in the Klapp User Manual for more information.

Furthermore, due to the limitations of geometrical acoustics, Klapp only achieves “perceptually plausible” results. This means that the simulation produces results that may not precisely represent real sound propagation, but are very close, i.e. the results sound plausible to the naked ear, but may not perfectly represent reality.