SoundPLAN Essential is the single document application for environmental noise planning of roads, railways and industrial facilities. Create noise contour maps in cities and open environment from basic 3D geometry and some traffic information or sound power data. It was conceived with the occasional user in mind who may not have in-depth knowledge of acoustics and want results in the smallest amount of time with the maximum amount of professionalism. It is a compact version of SoundPLAN, based on its calculation core and having its power, fast data processing and striking graphics. It is so easy to use, even engineers without special training for noise control will have no trouble using it. And, as it includes SoundPLAN´s noise contour map capabilities, presentations are easy to create and easy to understand. SoundPLAN essential allows standard cases to be processed quickly, efficiently and inexpensively.

Noise Models for:

• Road, Railroads, Parking lots
• Industrial point, line and area sources
• Noise Protection Walls and Berms
• Simulates the noise on top of continuously triangulated Digital Ground Model (DGM)

Features Include:

• Model any size project
• DXF and GIS import, or digitize on bitmaps
• Easy presentation of scenario with or without a noise protection barrier
• Calculations consider the Digital Ground Model
• Local noise standards provided
• Easy to use graphical data interface
• Striking grid noise and contour maps

Result Tables and Graphics:

The emission level calculations and the results of the noise propagation are presented in tabular form in predefined tables. Additional text can be added for map descriptions and you can customize the layout for each object. Plus:

• Tabular documentation of source properties
• Documentation of source contribution levels
• Level tables show the noise level for all floors and time slices
• Limit contour lines option

Many planning processes require calculations for noise emissions and air pollution dispersion. It is welcome news to hear SoundPLAN has a uniform software interface for both types of calculations so users can work efficiently in both areas of expertise.

SoundPLAN builds a comfortable bridge between science and engineering: Embedding scientific calculation kernels in the user friendly interface of SoundPLAN and adding specific tools for data control, data conversion and result presentation, SoundPLAN creates an environment for high efficient air pollution dispersion calculation, benefitted from over 25 years of noise programming experience.

Modular Architecture

The modules offered by SoundPLAN are spread from a "simple" Gauss model up to complex prognostic models. The model selection depends strongly on the requested task and the available input data. Therefore the modules can't replace each other. It is not sensible to start with the simpler models Gauss and Austal2000, which were mainly designed for industry licensing procedures, if your work is focused on roads or complex terrain. You should know details about the model borders, before you decide to buy.

Base Module Air Pollution

• The Base Module Air Pollution generates the environment where all modules are embedded. Besides the basic modules for data input, calculation and result presentation it contains special air pollution library tools which are designed to make your work easy, efficient and transparent. If you own already a SoundPLAN license, no matter if it is for acoustics or air pollution, the base module is discounted by 50%.

Gauss^{TA Luft'86}

• Gauss^{TA Luft'86} is a model for quick estimations: The formulas of the former German standard "TA Luft '86" are suitable for approximate calculations, e.g. to estimate background concentrations or to make worst case studies, whenever free flow conditions can be assumed around emission sources.

GRAL system

• GRAL system contains of two programs. The highly recommended Austrian Lagrange particle dispersion model GRAL is suitable to include traffic sources in street canyons. It uses optionally a diagnostic wind field approach or a mixed approach, which can take explicitly buildings into account by calculating a prognostic wind field for a limited area around the buildings. Also tunnel portals can be modeled. To show up its full strength GRAL should be used with pre processed prognostic mesoscale GRAMM wind fields. GRAMM was developed in the complex topography of the Austrian Alps and is capable to regard strongly undulated terrain, and differentiated land use.
• The first release is again delayed, it will be published in Winter 2013/14.

MISKAM advanced

• The MISKAM kernel is mainly designed for highly resolved street canyons in urban quarters. The fine grid resolution starts where GRAL ends. Therefore those two models complete each other in a most sensible way. The established, highly recommended and steadily validated prognostic wind field model is ideal for detailed studies, when air movements around buildings suppress thermal effects.
• The former SoundPLAN interface for MISKAM, as SoundPLAN module also simply named MISKAM, didn't support the full functionality of the MISKAM kernel. This slim version is still maintained for customers with a continuous maintenance contract, but it is no longer sold.In winter 2013/14 it will be replaced by the new module  MISKAM advanced, which provides additionally underflow of buildings, flow-through of vegetation and a 64 bit version.
• Intermediate solution: If you mandatory preorder MISKAM advanced, you'll get the current interface for the old price and we invoice the rest, when you receive MISKAM advanced. As soon as you receive MISKAM advanced, the full update and maintenance period is restarted.
• Current MISKAM users will get a special upgrade offer as soon as MISKAM advanced is released.

AUSTAL2000 interface

• AUSTAL2000 is the public domain reference model of the current German directive "TA Luft 02". The model input and output is strictly designed to fulfill the demands of German directives (supports directive 2008/50/EC) and needs a professional interface like SoundPLAN to work efficiently. A more flexible kernel version was announced for 2012 but it is not yet released.

Design Concepts behind SoundPLAN

SoundPLAN is not just another noise model. It is a fully integrated noise planning software suite that by design is more flexible, more versatile and faster than others. The quality of the software and the output it produces continues to make SoundPLAN the undisputed market leader with by far the biggest market share worldwide. In this section you can read some of the concepts that earned SoundPLAN this leading market position.

Practical program organization

• Modular by design -buy only the modules you need, extend your portfolio when a new job requires it
• Not everything from data entry to the last plot in the same screen, but organized so every step is optimally supported with what you need when you need it
• Calculates in the background -edit your data while the last set of data is still calculating
• Organization of calculations as a spreadsheet with editing and execute dates and a full account of all parameters and the file name under which the results are saved
• Update service via the web - click and see if there is a new revision that may already have the tool you just found out you needed
• Multiple instances of the libraries (System, Global and Project)
• A complete integration of aircraft noise, indoor factory noise, environmental noise and air pollution make this software completely unique
• Multi document application - multiple input files, multiple calculation results, multiple documentation tables and spreadsheets and multiple sheets with varying, multiple content
• Compare results from multiple calculations in tabular form or view the calculations in depth with Documentation and Spreadsheet
• True Wall Optimization for single receivers and Façade Noise Maps with the results saved as a Geo-File so that it can be incorporated into the next calculation

Strategic project organization

• Situations and Geo-Files - no redundant data, clear organization of variants
• Tiling automatically manages huge simulation projects including the size of a country (Germany is managed as a single project)
• User definable noise assessments SoundPLAN data objects
• Impressive graphics capabilities
• Many different map types and display options can be freely combined for stunning graphics
• Manage multiple sheets with multiple content all in one tree diagram with copy of elements and settings between them
• Multiple types of graphics all on the same sheet
• Triangulated "City Noise Map" with the possib9ility of 1 calculations and output for single frequencies or frequency bands
• Flexible with user defined appearance via the object manager
• Save graphics as a template and use the template in other projects - simply specify the data files and the formatting is done
• Arithmetic with noise maps - add, subtract- show improvement between before and after scenario

Superior Calculations with

• High speed, high accuracy - calculate with projection to the Digital Ground Model
• Industrial calculations with transmission from indoor to outdoor and outdoor calculations into the environment
• Traceable and repeatable results that "know" where they come from and what settings were used in their creation
• Grid Noise Maps, Triangulated receiver mesh noise map, Façade Noise Map, Vertical Grid Noise Map, Single receivers
• Multi threaded calculations with minimal overhead -on multi core /multi processor PCs run your application with just a few percent overhead (much less than the 40% advertised by Intel)
• Distributed Computing to scale your application. Use as many networked PCs as you want for the price of a single small module - no extra license fees needed for additional number crunching PCs
• Ability to calculate and edit your data at the same time
• Industrial noise with mean frequency, octave bands and third octave band

The Geo-Database as the core of data entry and manipulations make truly professional work possible

• Data entry from external files and databases, Digitizing with tablet and on top of bitmaps – ArcGIS and Google Maps interface
• Zoom, pan, rotate, view with user defined viewports
• View and select by object type or file
• Within an object the attributes can change at any coordinate (for example a speed and road surface for a road or the height and absorption coefficient of a noise barrier)