Modelling of scattering from balcony fronts

Balconies are normally used in large auditoria such as concert halls or opera houses, to increase seating capacity or to give better view for a distinguished group of the audience. When raytracing based computer models are applied to study the acoustical quality of these auditoria, the alteration of the sound field due to balcony fronts is normally unobservable, because of the relative small size of the balcony fronts in the auditorium. Furthermore, most diffuse reflection ray-tracing methods are not based on direct wave acoustics but on an approximation of the scattering effect. In practice, experience shows that balcony fronts give additional warmth to music. This effect is more prominent when singers perform in traditional horseshoe shaped opera houses with multi-levels balconies. This paper describes modelling of scattering from balcony fronts using a theoretical wave approach, in which the incident wave front is not plane but spherical. A computer simulation illustrates the scattering of sound that takes place when the wavefront impinges on the surface of the balcony fronts.