Validating acoustical simulations in the Bell Labs Box

Researchers at Cornell University constructed a simple real-world scene, the Cornell Box, in which they carefully measured the lighting, geometry, and reflectance properties of every surface and duplicated it in a 3D computer graphics model. Using this simple and controlled experimental setup, they were able to make meaningful comparisons between global illumination simulations and photographs of the scene and provide explanations for the differences. Motivated by the Cornell Box's success, we've built a simple experimental setup for validating sound propagation simulations. Our setup, the Bell Labs Box, comprises a simple configuration of planar surfaces with a speaker and a microphone. Although the room's basic configuration is a simple six-sided box, we constructed it with reconfigurable panels that we can insert or remove to create various interesting geometries, including ones with diffracting panels.