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Lighting

Lighting includes both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interio from daylight. Lighting represents a major component of energy coumption, accounting for a significant part of all energy coumed worldwide. Artificial lighting is provided today by electric lights, but previously by Gas lighting, candles or oil lamps. Proper lighting can enhance task performance or aesthetics, while there can be energy wastage and advee health effects of lighting. Indoor lighting is a form of fixture or furnishing, and a key part of interior design. Lighting can also be an intriic component of landscaping.

Fixtures

Lighting fixtures come in a wide variety of styles for various functio. Some are very plain and functional, while some are pieces of art in themselves. Nearly any material can be used, so long as it can tolerate the heat and is in keeping with safety codes.

Proper selection of fixtures is complicated by the requirement to minimize the veiling reflectio off of printed material. Since the exact orientation of printed material may not be closed controlled, a visual comfort probability can be calculated for a given set of lighting fixtures.

Lighting types are classified by intended use as general, localized, or task lighting, depending largely on the distribution of the light produced by the fixture.

Forms of Lighting include alcove lighting, which like most other uplighting is indirect. This is often done with fluorescent lighting or rope light, or occasionally with neon lighting. It is a form of backlighting.

Soffit or close to wall lighting can be general or a decorative wall-wash, sometimes used to bring out texture (like stucco or plaster) on a wall, though this may also show its defects as well. The effect depends heavily on the exact type of lighting source used.

Recessed lighting (often called "pot lights" in Canada, "can lights" or 'high hats" in the U.S.) is popular, with fixtures mounted into the ceiling structure so as to appear flush with it. These downlights can use narrow beam spotlights, or wider-angle floodlights, both of which are bulbs having their own reflecto. There are also downlights with internal reflecto designed to accept common 'A' lamps (light bulbs) which are generally less costly than reflector lamps. Downlights can be incandescent, fluorescent, HID (high inteity discharge) or LED, though only reflector incandescent or HID lamps are available in spot configuration.

Track lighting, invented by Lightolier, was popular at one point because it was much easier to itall then recessed lighting, and individual fixtures are decorative and can be easily aimed at a wall. It has regained some popularity recently in low-voltage tracks, which often look nothing like their predecesso because they do not have the safety issues that line-voltage systems have, and are therefore less bulky and more ornamental in themselves. A master traformer feeds all of the fixtures on the track or rod with 12 or 24 volts, itead of each light fixture having its own line-to-low voltage traformer. There are traditional spots and floods, as well as other small hanging fixtures. A modified veion of this is cable lighting, where lights are hung from or clipped to bare metal cables under teion.

A sconce is a wall-mounted fixture, particularly one that shines up and sometimes down as well. A torchiere (tour-she-AIR or tour-SHARE) is an uplight intended for ambient lighting. It is typically a floor lamp but may be wall-mounted like a sconce.

The portable or table lamp is probably the most common fixture, found in every home and many offices. The standard lamp and shade that sits on a table is general lighting, while the desk lamp is coidered task lighting. Magnifier lamps are also task lighting.

The illuminated ceiling was once popular in the 1960s and 1970s but fell out of favor after the 1980s. This uses diffuser panels hung like a suspended ceiling below fluorescent lights, and is coidered general lighting. Other forms include neon, which is not usually intended to illuminate anything else, but to actually be an artwork in itself. This would probably fall under accent lighting, though in a dark nightclub it could be coidered general lighting. Underwater accent lighting is also used for koi ponds , fountai, swimming pools and the like.

In a movie theater each step in the aisles is usually marked with a row of small lights, for convenience and safety when the film has started, hence the other lights are off. Traditionally made up of small low wattage, low voltage lamps in a track or tralucent tube, these are rapidly being replaced with LED based veio.

Vehicle use

Vehicles typically include headlights and tail lights. Headlights are white or yellow lights placed in the front of the vehicle, designed to illuminate the upcoming road and to make the vehicle more visible. Tail lights are always red and are placed in the rear to quickly alert other drive about the vehicle's direction of travel. The white portion of the tail light is the back-up lamp, which when lit, is used to indicate that the vehicle's tramission has been placed in the revee gear, warning anyone behind the vehicle that it is moving backwards, or about to do so.

In addition to lighting for useful purposes, and early 1970s, manufacture would sometimes backlight their logos and or other tralucent panelling. In the 1990s, a popular trend was to customize vehicles with neon lighting, especially underneath the body of a car. In the 2000s, neon lighting is increasingly yielding to digital vehicle lighting, in which bright LEDs are placed on the car and operated by a computer which can be customized and programmed to display a range of changing patter and colo, a technology borrowed from Christmas lights.

Lamps

Commonly called 'light bulbs', lamps are the removable and replaceable portion of a luminaire which converts electrical energy to both visible and non-visible electromagnetic energy. Specialists who work with lighting, carefully avoid energetic units for measuring of the light output of sources of light. For example, itead of Watt per steradian, the special unit candela is used; 1 candela=(1/683) W/steradian. Common characteristics used to evaluate lamp quality include efficiency measured in lume per watt, typical lamp life measured in hou, and Color Rendering Index on a scale of 0 to 100. Cost of replacement lamps is also an important factor in any design.

Design

Lighting design as it applies to the built environment, also known as 'architectural lighting design', is both a science and an art. Compreheive lighting design requires coideration of the amount of functional light provided, the energy coumed, as well as the aesthetic impact supplied by the lighting system. Some buildings, like surgical cente and sports facilities, are primarily concerned with providing the appropriate amount of light for the associated task. Some buildings, like warehouses and office buildings, are primarily concerned with saving money through the energy efficiency of the lighting system. Other buildings, like casinos and theatres, are primarily concerned with enhancing the appearance and emotional impact of architecture through lighting systems. Therefore, it is important that the sciences of light production and luminaire photometrics are balanced with the artistic application of light as a medium in our built environment. These electrical lighting systems should also coider the impacts of, and ideally be integrated with, daylighting systems. Facto involved in lighting design are essentially the same as those discussed above in energy coervation analysis.

Mathematical modeling is normally used for complex lighting design, whereas, for simple configuratio, tables and simple hand calculatio can be used. Based on the positio and mounting heights of the fixtures, and their photometric characteristics, the proposed lighting layout can be checked for uniformity and quantity of illumination. For larger projects or those with irregular floor pla, lighting design software can be used. Each fixture has its location entered, and the reflectance of walls, ceiling, and floo can be entered. The computer program will then produce a set of contour charts overlaid on the project floor plan, showing the light level to be expected at the working height. More advanced programs can include the effect of light from windows or skylights, allowing further optimization of the operating cost of the lighting itallation.

The Zonal Cavity Method is used as a basis for both hand, tabulated, and computer calculatio. This method uses the reflectance coefficients of room surfaces to model the contribution to useful illumination at the working level of the room due to light reflected from the walls and the ceiling. Simplified photometric values are usually given by fixture manufacture for use in this method.

Computer modelling of outdoor flood lighting usually proceeds directly from photometric data. The total lighting power of a lamp is divided into small solid angular regio. Each region is extended to the surface which is to be lit and the area calculated, giving the light power per unit of area. Where multiple lamps are used to illuminate the same area, each one's contribution is summed. Again the tabulated light levels (in lux or foot-candles) can be presented as contour lines of cotant lighting value, overlaid on the project plan drawing. Hand calculatio might only be required at a few points, but computer calculatio allow a better estimate of the uniformity and lighting level.

Practical lighting design must take into account the gradual decrease in light levels from each lamp owing to lamp aging, lamp burnout, and dirt accumulation on fixture and lamp surfaces. Empirically-established depreciation facto are listed in lighting design handbooks.

Energy consumption

Artificial lighting coumes a significant part of all electrical energy coumed worldwide. In homes and offices from 20 to 50 percent of total energy coumed is due to lighting. Most importantly, for some buildings over 90 percent of lighting energy coumed can be an unnecessary expee through over-illumination (Hawken, 2000). Thus lighting represents a critical component of energy use today, especially in large office buildings where there are many alternatives for energy utilization in lighting. There are several strategies available to minimize energy requirements in any building:

Health effects

It is valuable to provide the correct light inteity and color spectrum for each task or environment. Otherwise, energy not only could be wasted but over-illumination can lead to advee health and psychological effects.

Specification of illumination requirements is the basic concept of deciding how much illumination is required for a given task. Clearly, much less light is required to illuminate a hallway or bathroom compared to that needed for a word processing work station. Prior to 1970 (and too often even today), a lighting engineer would simply apply the same level of illumination design to all parts of the building without coidering usage. Generally speaking, the energy expended is proportional to the design illumination level. For example, a lighting level of 80 footcandles might be chosen for a work environment involving meeting rooms and conferences, whereas a level of 40 footcandles could be selected for building hallways. If the hallway standard simply emulates the conference room needs, then twice the amount of energy will be coumed as is needed for hallways. Unfortunately, most of the lighting standards even today have been specified by industrial groups who manufacture and sell lighting, so that a historical commercial bias exists in designing most building lighting, especially for office and industrial settings. Beyond the energy facto being coidered, it is important not to over-design illumination, lest advee health effects such as headache frequency, stress, and increased blood pressure be induced by the higher lighting levels. In addition, glare or excess light can decrease worker efficiency (DiLouie, 2006).

Analysis of lighting quality particularly emphasizes use of natural lighting, but also coide spectral content if artificial light is to be used. Not only will greater reliance on natural light reduce energy coumption, but will favorably impact human health and performance. For example, it is clear that student test scores are improved for children who learn in the presence of greater natural light (Bain, 1997).

Artificial nightlighting has been associated with irregular metrual cycles.

Professional organizations

The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), in conjunction with organizatio like ANSI and ASHRAE, publishes guidelines, standards, and handbooks that allow categorization of the illumination needs of different built environments. Manufacture of lighting equipment publish photometric data for their products, which defines the distribution of light released by a specific luminaire. This data is typically expressed in standardized form defined by the IESNA.

The International Association of Lighting Designe (IALD) is an organization which focuses on the advancement of lighting design education and the recognition of independent professional lighting designe. Those fully independent designe who meet the requirements for professional membehip in the association typically append the abbreviation IALD to their name.

The National Council on Qualificatio for the Lighting Professio (NCQLP) offe the Lighting Certification Examination which tests rudimentary lighting design principles. Individuals who pass this exam become Lighting Certified and may append the abbreviation LC to their name. This certification process is one of three national examinatio (the othe are CLEP and CLMC) in the lighting industry and is open not only to designe, but to lighting equipment manufacture, electric utility employees, etc. Generally speaking there is no legal or practical requirement for the lighting design team to possess the certificatio discussed.

Indian Society of Lighting Enginee (ISLE) is a society in India, which has various professionals such as Physicists, Lighting Enginee, Architects, Medical Professionals and Ophthalmologists, Light source and fitting manufacture. ISLE promotes Lighting Education, helps research and exchange of information and knowledge among the professionals. Visit http://kb.isle-karnataka.org and http://www.isleind.org for more information.

ISLE has introduced coues on Lighting Design, Engineering and Architecture in Manipal Ititute of Technology, Manipal (Karnataka), Jadhavpur Univeity, Kolkata, (West Bengal) School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and Maeer Ititute of Technology, Pune, (Maharashtra).

ISLE Karnataka State Center has organised in cooperation with the European Union under the EU ASIA INVEST Program a series of training programs in the field of Street Lighting and Outdoor Lighting, which is of particular interest to the Municipalities and to Tourism Develope, with emphasis on techniques, standards, energy coervation, safety and security.

* Diese Beschreibung basiert zum Teil auf der freien Enzyklopädie Wikipedia und steht unter der GNU-Lizenz für freie Dokumentation. In der Wikipedia ist eine Liste der Autoren verfügbar.