A demo version of the new ESME Workbench acoustic impact simulator is now available for downloading from our website: http://esme.bu.edu/download/index.shtml This demo version includes environmental databases with world-wide coverage from the US Navy Ocean Acoustics Modeling Library (OAML) and allows you to specify sound source parameters and to compute, visualize, and save transmission loss fields. The ESME Workbench also includes a GIS-like capability for visualizing environmental data. Later this summer we will be releasing the fully featured ESME Workbench that will include the 3MB animal movement simulator and the ability to analyze and save the exposure history of the virtual animals (animats) in the simulator. The current version of the acoustic simulator assumes a narrow-band source and uses a ray-tracing approach (Bellhop <http://oalib.hlsresearch.com/Rays/index.html>) that is not suitable for shallow water (less that 10 wavelengths). Future version of the ESME Workbench will include the capability to simulate broad-band sources and algorithms suitable for shallow water. Due to the size of the environmental databases, the installer is quite large (1.8 GB) so the download can take a very long time to download unless you have a very high-speed internet connection. The environmental databases are also available for downloading individually for users who wish to use their own acoustic propagation software. Please let us know if you need help using the simulator or if you discover any problems. Also, suggestions for how to improve the simulator would be greatly appreciated. Note: the installer checks to see if the environmental databases are already installed so that future upgrades will install much faster. -- David C. Mountain, Ph.D. Professor of Biomedical Engineering Boston University 44 Cummington St. Boston, MA 02215 Email: dcm@bu.edu Website: http://www.bu.edu/hrc/research/laboratories/auditory-biophysics/ Phone: (617) 353-4343 FAX: (617) 353-6766 Office: ERB 413