Patent ID: 8750542

Claim:
A method of configuring an array of speaker elements for use in a venue, comprising: providing an initial candidate configuration for the array of the speaker elements as a candidate configuration of the array of the speaker elements and iterating in a plurality of iterations having steps of: computing, with a computer and using a radiation model, a sound field produced by the array of the speaker elements having the candidate configuration, at a plurality of points in the venue; evaluating, for the candidate configuration of the array of the speaker elements, with the computer, an objective function involving the computed sound field at a plurality of audience positions in the venue; and selecting a new candidate configuration for the array of the speaker elements as the candidate configuration of the array of the speaker elements; repeating the steps of the iterations, thereby iterating a plurality of candidate configurations, until stopping in accordance with a stopping criteria; and configuring the array of the speaker elements in accordance with a selected one of the plurality the of candidate configurations of the array of the speaker elements for which the objective function was evaluated by the plurality of the iterations, wherein the objective function comprises: a sum, over the plurality of the audience positions in the venue, of a measure indicative of a difference between a magnitude of the sound field and a target value for the magnitude of the sound field at the plurality of the audience positions in the venue; and a measure indicative of a relative size of total sound pressure delivered to non-audience positions compared to the total sound pressure delivered to the plurality of the audience positions in the venue.