Time domain visualizations of simulated acoustic propagation and scattering processes in complex structures using a cellular automaton algorithm run on a parallel processor

A cellular automaton realization of a finite difference time domain algorithm that can exploit the full power of parallel processors to simulate acoustic wave fields as they evolve in time, forming animated visualizations of wave propagation and scattering processes has been developed. Since the computation time is independent of environmental complexities (e.g., boundary shape, medium inhomogeneities), it is possible to simulate and visualize acoustic propagation in complex structures. Moreover the algorithm does not employ the far‐field approximation so it is particularly useful to study time‐dependent near‐field and intermediate‐field processes. Two‐dimensional views of a four‐dimensional space‐time lattice of acoustic field values are selected.