Erwin
hartog van Banda
Division
director Software and IT
DGMR
Software bv
www.dgmr.nl
Email:
ha@dgmr.nl
Most noise prediction standards are too
complicated to put into a general purpose spreadsheet application. For this
reason many prediction standards have been implemented in special purpose
software. As legislation became more strict from the
start of the 80’s commercial noise consultants with some software knowledge
have been addressing this growing market. Although most calculation
standards still originate from the 80’s
there is a growing demand for additional functionality on the field of user
friendliness, use of GIS data, data management, web enabled use, reporting
options etc. The new harmonized calculation method for Europe will also have a
big impact on the software development. At the start of the 80’s the software
could be written by a single acoustician with some software knowledge. Nowadays
the development of such specialized software requires a team of specialists
consisting of Acousticians, GIS specialists, Mathematicians, Help writers,
Translators and Software developers. One of the many challenges of the team is
the unclear paper documentation of a prediction standard. Another issue is the
absence of software certification procedures as well as software implementation guidelines by official
assigned national or international committees. The software development team
will therefore also have to interpret the calculation standard themselves and
make choices for implementation.
This paper gives insight in the tools,
the process, disciplines and the skills needed for implementation of noise prediction
standards into software.