Pipe Length Calculator

The pipe organ building company Manufacture Quentin Blumenroeder needed a tool to calculate the length of a pipe. The tool had to be easy to use and to understand. The tool is used by the employees of the company to calculate the length of pipes when building a new organ. They were using a spreadsheet before, but it was not user-friendly and was not advanced enough.

The tool is a web application that I made hosted alongside the company’s website. The purpose is to calculate the lengths for a set of pipes with settings like what is called a temperament. Other real-world errors are also taken into account. It can also be used to compare measured data with theoretical results in order to find what temperament an organ might be based on. My father was very happy with the result and the tool is now used almost everyday by the company and has saved a lot of time.

In addition to these practical applications for making calculations, I added a feature in a new iteration of the program. The tool can now generate a plan for the pipes that can be directly exported in DXF format, compatible with the software used on-site. This plan generation works in multiple configurations and allows automating repetitive tasks that were previously done by hand.

This project might be small but it’s one of my favorites! It was stimulating to do the research on the maths behind music but it was also a good challenge to translate the needs of someone who doesn’t know anything about programming into a tool that is easy to use and understand.