Noise Modelling is done using Sound PLAN noise modelling software for modelling the environment noise monitoring results. The modelling capabilities is provided in the following sections:

Industry Noise enables the user to create sources describing industrial usage. The source types are point, line and area sources, and the industrial building.

The emissions of the sources need to be entered with the sound power for a single frequency or for an octave or third octave band. Source definitions describe line and area sources as total sound power or as sound power per meter/square meter of the source.

For the industrial building, it is possible to enter the sound pressure inside and calculate the transmission from the inside to the outside, or to define the sound power per square meter on the outside surface.

In collaboration with the Indoor Factory Noise module, the sound pressure on the inside of the building can also be simulated. The library has functions to convert sound pressure measurements into the equivalent sound power. The library also contains a material’s library for the transmission losses and the absorption coefficients.

Industrial sources can also be associated with various directives, and for time variable sources, with a day history. Results can be post processed in the Documentation, Spreadsheet and Graphics. Optimizations to fight industrial noise can be found in the module Expert System for Industrial Noise.

Grid Noise Map follows the terrain with a noise map calculated at a user specified height above the ground. Powerful tools allow the results of the Grid Noise Map to be processed into noise contour maps. Color the contour lines or the fill pattern in accordance to the user defined scale. Contour lines can be output as straight lines or Bezier curves. Multiple Grid Noise Maps can be used in the same project and displayed in the same or multiple different drawings. If users have access to both the Grid Noise Map and the Façade Noise Map, a third noise map, the Meshed Map, automatically becomes available.

The Geo-Database is the place where the most time is spent building the noise model. With the DXF and ASCII interfaces, a lot of common data from external sources can be imported and included in a comprehensive noise model. It is also possible to load a geo-referenced bitmap into the background and digitize on this canvas. DXF, ASCII interface and the background bitmap are all part of the Geo-Database. The data created in the Geo-Database are stored in an unlimited number of Geo-Files. To keep order in the multitude of Geo-Files, a sub-structure called “Situations” organizes the files in folders in a manner similar to how files are stored in folders in the Windows Explorer. An extensive collection of Geo-tools, view operations, and selection and manipulation tools make the Geo-Database a highly sophisticated GIS type data entry and manipulation instrument. The Geo-Database hosts the SoundPLAN Manager (the project administration tool), the Library (the general storage area of data to be used in multiple projects), the Documentation (the producer of printed documentation on the findings of a single calculation run), the Spreadsheet (for comparing multiple calculation runs) and the non-modular graphics (for making overview graphics for presentations).