Designing With Light is available as a soft back book and as an ebook for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and the Google Play Books app.
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March 11, 2019 in Color, Light
I will be presenting Understanding and Applying TM-30 to the New Jersey section of the IES on Tuesday, March 19th. If you’re interested in attending you can register at http://www.iesofnj.org/TM3015.html.
February 13, 2019 in Education, Lighting Profession
On February 28th I’ll be one of the panelists at the annual DLFNY “Debate”. Here’s how they describe it:
Join us for a fun and educational evening of lively, sometimes absurd debate between members of the New York City lighting design community. Enjoy a verbal joust as the debaters take sides on some of the most pressing topics in the lighting industry, during a light-hearted evening of discussion mixed with humorous provocation and competition.
The topics have been chosen to provoke a dialog, so the opinions expressed by our panel may not be their personal stance, but will surely be interesting to hear.
You can find more information and register at DLFNY.com
February 11, 2019 in Design, Education
This is a lighting design blog, but many of my students are interior designers, so I’m going to speak to them for a moment with interesting news. The Council for Interior Design Qualification has updated the definition of Interior Design. The short definition is:
Interior design encompasses the analysis, planning, design, documentation, and management of interior non-structural/non-seismic construction and alteration projects in compliance with applicable building design and construction, fire, life-safety, and energy codes, standards, regulations, and guidelines for the purpose of obtaining a building permit, as allowed by law. Qualified by means of education, experience, and examination, interior designers have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect consumers and occupants through the design of code-compliant, accessible, and inclusive interior environments that address well-being, while considering the complex physical, mental, and emotional needs of people
The new, full definition can be found here.
A couple of weeks ago the Global Lighting Association (GLA) published Application of CIE 13.3-1995 with Associated CRI-based Color Rendition Properties. It proposes TM-30 like metrics to supplement CRI Ra. Specifically, it proposes a color gamut index, Ga, that is similar to TM-30’s Rg and a set of chroma indices, Ci, similar to TM-30’s Rch,hj. At first glance I can see some specifiers getting excited about this. Since it’s based on CRI it’s already somewhat familiar so it should be easier to learn. But…
The first part is the problem – it’s based on CRI, which has well known and well documented problems and shortcomings. As described in The Lighting Handbook, 10thEd.and IES DG-1 Color and Illumination, they include:
Averaging the Color Shifts. CRI is computed by averaging the color shifts of the eight color samples. A light source can render one sample very poorly and still achieve an acceptable score. The Chroma Indices attempt to resolve this, but there’s a problem with the eight color samples, which is next on our list.
Test Color Samples. The eight color samples are all of moderate saturation, so saturated colors can be rendered poorly even when CRI is high. More importantly, the eight color samples are A) not based on any real-world objects B) don’t adequately cover the visible spectrum. The latter is significant because it means that some wavelengths play an outsized role in determining CRI. Manufacturers can use this to optimize (or cheat) their spectrum to achieve a higher CRI than visual inspection would warrant. This is why TM-30 uses 99 color samples drawn from real world objects.
Color Space. CRI is calculated in the CIE 1964 color space, which is no longer recommended for any other use because it is outdated.
Penalties for all Chromaticity Shifts. As a fidelity metric, CRI penalizes all chromaticity shifts even though research has shown that certain increases in chroma are preferred. Again, it seems that Ci is intended to address this, but it doesn’t resolve the other problems with CRI.
Chromatic Adaptation. The chromatic adaptation transform used in CRI has been shown to perform poorly and is no longer recommended for any application.
CRI served the industry (relatively) well, but its time is over. Layering new calculations on top of CRI’s flawed foundation doesn’t make it better. I know TM-30 can be tough. But it works. It tells us what we want to know at the level of detail we need for a given project, and it’s accurate. The IES has moved on and the CIE seems to be leaning in that direction as well. So should you!
January 22, 2019 in Uncategorized
It’s time for the back to school music video about (sort of) light. So here’s The Doors on a set made of Doors(!) singing Light My Fire. Is that Andy Kaufman in the background?
Unfortunately, either GoDaddy or WordPress has done something dumb and I can’t insert a video. Go here now!
October 30, 2018 in Uncategorized
The IES is about to release an update to TM-30 (TM-30–18). Along with the updated version they have released this Position Statement.
Source: PS-11-18: IES Position on TM-30-18, IES Method for Evaluating Light Source Color Rendition | IES
This week I’ll be focusing and setting light levels in a new corporate board room. The first photo below shows testing of the RGBW LED cove lights. The second photo shows the partial installation of a hard dropped ceiling with downlights and a central luminous panel.
September 21, 2018 in Design, Lighting Profession
Sometimes the New York Times is oblivious and yesterday was one of them. In an article titled Lighting a Room, Simplified the author wrote about the importance of lighting in the home. In preparing the article, she spoke to and quoted four interior designers, one fixture manufacturers and one professional lighting designer. In addition, all eight of the photos in the article are taken during the day, so they’re nice illustrations of the use of windows and daylight in residential interiors but terrible illustrations of electric lighting, which is the topic of the article. They seem to be marketing photos for particular lighting fixtures, not examples of good lighting.
It’s too bad. There are plenty of lighting designers who would have gladly shared their expertise and their work with the public if asked. Unfortunately, this article is a reflection of the public’s (and the author’s) lack of awareness of the contribution good lighting, and therefore a good lighting designer, can make to a residential of commercial project.
Lighting doesn’t just come with a building. Most interior designers and architect receive little or no training or education in lighting design when they’re in school. Yes, some do have an affinity for lighting and can create beautiful work despite their lack of training. However, the best lighting design is most likely to come from the best trained people – professional lighting designers. If you are looking, one place to start is the IALD’s web site and the Find A Lighting Designer tool on the home page.
September 4, 2018 in Education
For many years the IES Ready Reference was on the desk of every lighting designer, and we were all baffled when they stopped publishing it. Great news, it’s back! This time as an app for your phone or tablet that’s available in the Apple App Store and Google Play. According to the IES, the app provides:
Download it from the Apple App Store or Google Play.