Wave Propagation

A real-time 2D acoustic wave simulator. Drop sources, paint walls, and watch diffraction, reflection, interference, and standing waves form on the canvas. Solver: scalar wave equation on a staggered grid using leapfrog finite differences (FDTD), with sponge-layer absorbing boundaries.

Controls

Preset Boundaries

Frequency λ ≈ 12.5 cells

Amplitude Brightness

Simulation

− pressure 0 + pressure Drag the source to move

Grid 320 × 180

Step 0

Sources 1

CFL 0.500

FDTD · 2D scalar wave

Tools: Drag moves existing sources. Source drops a continuous sinusoidal source where you click. Pulse fires a one-shot Gaussian pulse — best for seeing wavefronts and diffraction. Wall paints rigid walls (sound bounces off). Erase removes sources or walls under the cursor. The grid is in arbitrary units; one cell ≈ a millimeter or two of air at the typical wavelengths used here.