Monday, March 23, 2009

first foreign-based business setting up shop in YBI

A fun little story in Saturday's Youngstown Vindicator on using three-dimensional high-speed laser scanners (more on that in a sec) to acoustically model downtown's Ford Recital Hall contained an important fact:
"In the past few years, M-7 has been doing industrial scanning in a partnership with [Mr. Eike] Thiele. The German engineer now is creating a North American unit of his consulting business and basing it at M-7’s plant in the Ohio Works Industrial Park. His new company is affiliated with the Youngstown Business Incubator."
So now we can now add one more company affiliated with the YBI to be operating in downtown youngstown.

and this company has German roots.

Willkommen to Youngstown!

A while back YBI-based Turning Technologies opened their first international office in London, and that company's knowledge of international markets is being spread to other growing firms at the YBI.

Global companies.
Global markets.
Global Youngstown.

- - -

Back to acoustics.

The previously mentioned story (with accompanying video here) delves into a project originating from a backyard dinner between two neighbors - the president of M-7 Technologies and a violin professor at YSU's Dana School of Music.

Using the scanning equipment, an exact computer model of the interior space of Ford Recital Hall will be made. Afterwards:
"The next step will be to measure the acoustics of the hall and convert that to a digital file as well. Then, high-powered computers will play the digital music inside the digital model of the hall. Organizers will perform virtual experiments by adding sound-absorbing panels to look for ways to improve the hall’s performance."
And then, perhaps this method of analysis can be used at performance spaces around the world.

Wallace Clement Sabine, eat your heart out!

How would Sabine's famous formula have changed if he used this technology back in 1895?



2 comments:

Tyler said...

Yet another Youngstown link in what you've posted. Wallace Clement Sabine was the acoustician for Boston Symphony Hall, whose architects were McKim, Mead and White. They designed the Butler Institute of American Art.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the heads up on this! I'm actually teaching an Architectural Acoustics class this semester...highly relevant information in here.