Plot polar charts

[wonderfulaudio]

Hi,

I can produce SPL at various angles/distances/frequencies. How do I plot polar charts? Are there simple software tools?

Thanks,
WA

 

[ergo]

You can try
VituixCAD
David Ralph's Speaker Pages - Windows Surface Plotter (WinSurfacePlot)
ARTA

all can do such plotting as long as you convert the input data to correct format.

 

[David McBean]

I can produce SPL at various angles/distances/frequencies. How do I plot polar charts? Are there simple software tools?

You could always just use the Radar chart option in Excel.

 

[kimmosto]

You could always just use the Radar chart option in Excel.

Also Area chart would be okay, looks the same as area chart in VituixCAD

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

But why bother because VituixCAD already has everything also for this job. Needs one wire to XO and loading of frequency response files to driver with some rational off-axis angle coding in filenames.

 

[Juhazi]

Dayton Omnimic V2 software test version can do that, if you import responses. I tried to find download link, but it is missing now.

Dayton Audio OmniMic V2 Acoustic Measurement System

 

[kimmosto]

I tried to find download link, but it is missing now.

Link is this text: OmniMic V2 software version 5.04

That works quite okay because reads txt/frd files with angle coding as integer, though still very limited compared to VituixCAD which wipes the floor with the others 🙂
ARTA needs pir files or imported IRs, and WinSurfacePlot multi-column csv. Excel needs same kind of data processing than WSP manually or with VBA.

 

[ergo]

There is also Data visualization | www.scilab.org
that Audiomatica recommends, but that goes beyond 'simple software tools' imho....

So all in all many options and I agree that VituixCAD is the simplest for this and would be my go to choice for the task.

 

[ScottG]

That works quite okay because reads txt/frd files with angle coding as integer, though still very limited compared to VituixCAD which wipes the floor with the others 🙂

..not so fast there, Omnimic has a cylindrical balloon display that's interesting.

-and speaking of "balloon's" there is CLF:

CLF Viewer

I asked Ivo for Arta to have CLF export a while back, but nothing so far. 😱

-and while it's useful just in the context of the CLF viewer, it's more useful in the context of other programs.

As for the best balloon's I've seen, that's from Clio? ..nope:

Ease Speakerlab.

 

[kimmosto]

^Cylindrical balloon display is an alternative to waterfall/surface chart, but individual frequency responses are not so easy to compare.

Balloon would need actual spherical data which means measuring with dual axis rotation table or compatible mechanism for orbit rotation. Applies also to XO simulators so OT: Exporting of balloon data as CLF would be easy to add to VituixCAD, but orbits of virtual mic within measured horizontal and vertical planes would be results of response interpolation. Same function as orbit rotation with Planes phi deg parameter in Drivers tab.

Anyway, this was not a competition because wonderfulaudio did not ask what is the best; most featured, fast and easy to use software. So we can and will recommend all possible crap.

 

[Juhazi]

My facourite visualizations are these
-overlaid responses, best for limited angles with minimal smoothing, short gating (details)

-directivity spectrogram (big picture, with smoothing and normalization) Here with OmniMic V2

-Harman

More of this subject Speaker directivity / off axis response: theory and measurement techniques - Acoustic Frontiers

 

[kimmosto]

My facourite

Unfortunately value of "my favorite" comments is round zero. It tells nothing about method or tools itself, if background to personal choice is not explained. Just person who said it, because reason for selection could be e.g. inadequate experience, motivation, time, knowledge, money or bad chemistry between people or compatibility with other equipment purchased earlier. Anything else except quality and features of other tools or methods.

 

[ScottG]

-it's just an aesthetic thing. 🙂 (..and while the preference itself my rate "zero", the picture might rate more than that to someone else.)

With some adjustments you can of course get very similar results across multiple programs.

That it is or is not more comparable or even helpful really isn't the point (in that you can get similar results from multiple programs), though it could be argued if the display is more pleasing that it will be used more often (or looked at closer).

Like Juhazi's preference for the aesthetic for the "wrapped" directivity sonogram from Omnimic, I prefer REW's "3D enhanced". Still, I'd prefer the 3D rotated waterfall instead, and of various programs - back to Ease (though I should note that I'm not fond of the way they are "squashing" the degrees in the picture below, and I'd also like to see some degree lines passing through the graph):

 

[ScottG]

^of course I'm not going to spend the amount of money Ease want's just for this. 😛

 

[kimmosto]

^so our destiny is to pretend happy with VituixCAD and it's surface, polarmap, polar chart, line chart, area chart, normalization, orbit rotation, mic offset adjustment, hor/ver swapping, reference angle selection (=cursor), power and DI responses, listening window average, overlays, custom EQ with XO, ...

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Anyway, these graphs are not mandatory while crossover simulation so VituixCAD is kinda overloaded with directivity visualization features. Maybe I hide or remove something to get some credibility to "my favorite" comments which are quite pathetic imo 🙂

 

[ScottG]

😀 If you thought it was really that pathetic, you wouldn't have commented. 😉

-and yeah, your program also looks excellent - again, it's really just an aesthetic thing. You did of course designed your's, so you too have a preference.

btw, I think there is a lot (a WHOLE LOT) more to be happy with than simply VituixCAD's excellent polar plots. 🙂