  Echolocation is the prime sensing modality for many species of bats, who show
the intricate ability to perform a plethora of tasks in complex and
unstructured environments. Understanding this exceptional feat of sensorimotor
interaction is a key aspect into building more robust and performant man-made
sonar sensors. In order to better understand the underlying perception
mechanisms it is important to get a good insight into the nature of the
reflected signals that the bat perceives. While ensonification experiments are
in important way to better understand the nature of these signals, they are as
time-consuming to perform as they are informative. In this paper we present
SonoTraceLab, an open-source software package for simulating both technical as
well as biological sonar systems in complex scenes. Using simulation approaches
can drastically increase insights into the nature of biological echolocation
systems, while reducing the time- and material complexity of performing them.
