EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => Jobs => Topic started by: b_force on May 02, 2018, 08:15:40 pm
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I have been working professionally as an acoustic engineer for the last 10 years.
Unfortunately, the amount of free and/or open source programs is very slim.
The ones that are on the market are extremely limited, difficult to work with, buggy or simply just have an horrible interface.
The goal of this project is to develop something that would be easy accessible for everyone (limited for private use only).
Yet have all possibilities and freedom to completely change or add extra features, graphs, filters (passive, active and digital). Think of an hybrid between a CAD/Spice program in combination with text fields/menus.
What I am looking for, are programmers (I think 1 - 4 would be enough??) who have some knowledge about filters, DSP, audio, loudspeakers etc, or are willing to gain that knowledge.
Are strong in mathematics and have a good sense of what is needed for engineers.
I also expect that you will come with your own ideas and show initiative, since I ‘only’ have some basic programming skills (mostly in programming ucontrollers/electronics etc).
Key here is to make something that’s easy to use, so the interface is very important.
What’s in for you?
Unfortunately I don’t have the funds to pay you monthly. So see this as a big boost in your resume (which I can tell from a team leader/head of department point of view, is even more important). Of course also just the fun, learn some extra skills (from a professional ;) ) and the idea of making the open source community greater.
Maybe in the future there will be something more, but I have to work that out first.
What’s my role in this?
I will provide the needed information, articles, papers etc. Check if everything is working correctly and being technical lead on the engineering side (helping with formulas, filters, definitions etc).
Obviously I am also leading the team.
Btw, don’t expect me to be strict with planning, micro management etc. I expect that you can work on your own or (if more people are interested) you can sort these things out together.
I think it would be great to make this multi platform/OS if possible. If that’s to difficult, it should be made for Windows (and hopefully Wine compatible). The kind of programming language is up to you (obviously my preference is C, but if that’s asking for to much trouble it’s not a big deal)
If you’re interested, feel free to contact me.
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Greetings,
You haven't actually said what it is you want to develop. Can I assume it's a program for calculating optimal setups for a room given interference patterns, resonance between walls etc?
I've done some work in this area but I don't work for free, nor are you likely to find anyone who does.
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Greetings,
You haven't actually said what it is you want to develop. Can I assume it's a program for calculating optimal setups for a room given interference patterns, resonance between walls etc?
I've done some work in this area but I don't work for free, nor are you likely to find anyone who does.
No, that's not what I mean (although also a nice idea).
It's about creating and calculating filters for a loudspeakers system.
The user imports the frequency response and impedance (ASCII) files and add things like lowpass, highpass, active, digital (DSP), passive filters etc etc
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Do you want it to give a desired frequency response or balance for known parameters of the speaker system? Either way thats a pretty easy to code.
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Do you want it to give a desired frequency response or balance for known parameters of the speaker system? Either way thats a pretty easy to code.
A loudspeakers system often contains of multiple drivers, the user somehow needs to find the desired filters/crossver to make it works together.
Also there are some acoustic effects (like bafflestep compensation etc) that have to be compensated.
Traditionally this was done by passive filters (after the output stage), but obviously nowadays you can do that with active filters (opamps) or DSP.
That's what this program is for. (in the future maybe some things will be added)
I do have skills in programming ucontrollers, but developing a software program is not really my cup of tea.
That's why I am looking for people to help me out.
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There is a ton of free software that do this or that, together to achieve your goal of designing a speakerbox.
For example: WinISD, ARTA (Limp, Steps,...), HolmImpulse, Amplion, X-sim, etc...
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There is a ton of free software that do this or that, together to achieve your goal of designing a speakerbox.
For example: WinISD, ARTA (Limp, Steps,...), HolmImpulse, Amplion, X-sim, etc...
I know and I am (very familiar) with all of these programs.
Like I already mentioned in the opening post.
To be clear, the idea is not to make something like ARTA or Holmimpulse, but more like X-sim.
X-sim (and VituixCAD) is only very limited and/or the user interface isn't really working.
I have tried to get in contact and collaborate with these guys, but no one seems to be interested.
Which is a shame, because that means we need to start from scratch.
Anyway, thanks for ideas, but I am not here to debate what is there on the market, since I literally know every program that's out there (even the DOS oldies)
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I like this idea. BUT, I have no experience with GUI development. I would expect that integrating an existing version of spice is the way forwards, ideally, one that is actively maintained and open source e.g. ngspice.
I would happily look at implementing a "prototype/alpha" command line oriented tool, similar to ngspice, but targeted at acoustical analysis, primarily of loudspeaker designs.
What sort of format did you anticipate the loudspeaker models being formatted in? (assuming those are to be downloaded/created from manufacturer data)
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I am not interested in writing a bunch of audio DSP code. I did seismic for almost 30 years. That said, I have a *lot* of DSP experience. So if you or someone working on this has specific questions, PM me.
I have, or can rewrite if needed, a 3D finite difference code. The particular code which I should have is an 8th order spatial operator. I ran it on a MicroVAX II, so I may only have a 2D version, but 3D is a simple extension.
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Thanks for the interest guys.
I will get back to it properly next week.
This week is a little too hectic.