Auralizing arbitrary urban environments including diffraction

Supplementary Materials for Publication "Auralizing arbitrary urban environments including diffraction" This repository contains supplementary materials for the article P. Palenda and M. Vorländer, "Auralizing arbitrary urban environments including diffraction," Acta Acustica, 2026, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/aacus/2026033 It includes the pre-generated results and figures presented in the paper. Additionally, it provides the code used to generate these results, allowing for reproducibility and further exploration. The software used to generate the results is also included but is also available separately through the IHTA Package Registry. Abstract The auralization of urban environments presents significant challenges due to their often convex geometries and dynamic nature involving fast-moving sound sources and receivers. In this work, we introduce an open-source auralization tool specifically designed to address these challenges by efficiently simulating sound propagation in dynamically changing, arbitrarily built environments for diverse environmental sound sources which are characterized by their power and directivity. By leveraging principles from geometrical acoustics and specifically from the uniform theory of diffraction, our method efficiently models mixed reflections and diffraction effects, including higher-order diffraction and Doppler effects. The tool is evaluated with benchmark scenarios intended to stress-test its capabilities. While some limitations related to underlying assumptions – such as infinite-length edges – are identified, these findings underscore its potential for accurately auralizing urban environments. The evaluation highlights the need for the simulation of diffraction and higher-order diffraction effects not only in shadow regions but also around edges, which significantly influences overall sound propagation accuracy. Furthermore, our implementation provides a modular and flexible framework with open interfaces and exchange formats that facilitate integration with existing tools and adaptation to diverse use cases.