Recent research has focused on modeling the acoustic output of the violin using modern technology, often in attempt to determine critical differences between highly prized instruments from the great 17^th- and 18^th-century luthiers like Stradivari and Guarneri and more recently made instruments. Bernard Richardson, a physicist at the University of Wales in Cardiff, describes two recently developed methods for visualizing the instrument’s vibrations—holographic interferometry and finite element analysis. In holographic interferometry, a laser is used to make a hologram of the instrument as it vibrates in a particular mode. The various images produced interfere with each other, producing light bands at nodes and dark bands at antinodes, which are the areas of the instrument that move with maximum amplitude. Scientists use  a computational method called finite element analysis that breaks down the mathematically complex shape of the violin plates into a number of discrete parts whose motion can be numerically simulated on a computer. Richardson and his colleagues have used such models to build virtual instruments that can be "played" using a computer.

Violin sound field radiation patterns at three different frequencies. Courtesy of George Bissinger, East Carolina University

George Bissinger, a physics professor at East Carolina University, is another researcher who uses modern technology to tease out the secrets of centuries-old violins. Bissinger analyzes old and modern violins using a sophisticated laser system with three independent beams that scan the violin’s surface and measure the motion of each point in three dimensions. The violin is carefully suspended and then induced to vibrate by a small hammer that strikes the corner of the bridge, and an array of 266 microphones in an echo-free chamber records the pressure variations from the sound output. From these measurements, a visualization of the "sound field" can be produced. Bissinger then calculates how the radiation efficiency and damping of the violin’s vibration depend on frequency.

Bissinger has been able to isolate out-of-plane vibrations, which move air and thus create most of the sound, from in-plane vibrations, which dissipate energy within the plates of the violin and produce little or no sound. He has found that features such as the f-holes and bass bar are able to convert in-plane motion to out-of-plane motion, thereby increasing the sound production of the instrument. In addition, he has shown that the top plates of good instruments both old and new produce significantly more sound than the bottom plates—a major advantage to a player trying to be heard over an orchestra. Bissinger has also used computed tomography (CT scans) to determine the density of the wood inside various instruments.

Although neither Bissinger nor anyone else has yet unlocked Stradivari’s secret, if such a secret even exists, the increasingly sophisticated methods these investigators are applying to the violin are yielding ever more precise insight into the motion and sound production of this instrument. Makers are experimenting with computer-assisted design and new materials such as balsa and graphite, and it may not be far in the future when the top players accept today’s best instruments as equal to the Italian violins of old.