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Updated: Oct 21, 2025

Dendrochronological Dating and Provenancing of String Instruments
Published on: October 6, 2022
Application to visualize simultaneous vibrations of plates and ribs in a violin
Dana S Limón1, Jatziri H Rentería1, Jesús A Torres1
1Laboratorio de Acústica, Escuela de Laudería, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, Hidalgo #20 Centro, Querétaro, Querétaro 76000, Mexico.
Abstract:
A code was written to explore, in real-time, experimental operational deflection shapes up to 5 kHz of a violin soundbox. The animations can be rotated and zoomed using the mouse, while the developed graphical user interface (GUI) allows controlling the frequency, amplitude, and frame-per-second rate. Also, some parts of the model can be hidden to improve the visualization of specific details of interest. The measurements-performed by students as laboratory exercise-include the ribs and not only the plates as it is traditionally done, thus the vibrations of the soundbox can be analyzed as a whole. Since the GUI was developed under a cross-platform open-source software (scilab), it can be easily installed and used as an educational tool for traditional in-person learning or online learning.
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