Modern Aids to Lighting Design—Computer Techniques

Abstract

Modern lamp designs and improved lighting techniques need for their full development a tremendous number of calculations. Electronic computers make these practicable by overcoming their tedium and cost. The basis of analogue and digital computers is explained. Analogue computers are shown to be particularly useful for elucidating interior lighting design problems. The prodigious speed of digital computers rapidly completes complex calculations necessary for examining lamp and equipment designs, and lighting installations. The application to flux distributions, interreflections, luminance patterns and glare in interiors, and to streetlighting performance and floodlighting illumination in exterior lighting is followed in some detail. Tabulated data from research investigations will enable the lighting engineer to improve his design fairly simply, and some routine problems are already being referred to the computer as a matter of course.