Educating myself on lighting design?

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sw_ross

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Coming from the world of being an electrician, and basically installing and wiring up lighting that others have designed and planned out, I am interested in learning more about the process of lighting design.

I'm not sure the best way to go about this?
My end goal is I would like to look at a set of blueprints for a building, and given the application/design of the building (i.e., retail, restaraunt, church, warehouse) be able to choose the best lighting design/layout for the application and be able to "sell" the owners on the best choice within a given budget.

Is this process something that is learned just through experience? Or is there a more formal process to this goal of mine?

Thanks for any recommendations!
 
Companies that sell lighting products as their main product line usually have lighting design information on their websites. For example, when using outdoor lighting, the proper fixture spacing and fixture wattage to get a certain number of lumens per square foot. I've found lots of different pages on these kinds of things when researching bids. I also suspect if you go to an online bookseller, you can find a textbook on the subject.
 
Manufacturers of fixtures will generally provide design information for free, so I guess it would be possible to use that data along with other design details (wiring, etc) to generate a package you could sell. Consulting engineers basically do the same thing as a part of a project.
 
It's art as well as science.
Light meters have an eye sight of 0.0/20 and sees the world the way you would with frosted lens over your eyes.

The most basic lighting software can churn out passing color going by FC and watts/sq.ft using zonal cavity method using a single 1,000W MH lamp in a keyless socket for 80,000 lm in place of 20 4,000 lm troffer since things like uniformity and glare are ignored.

It doesn't form an image on the sensor like on a camera sensor or our retina and this often gets ignored when Energy Retrofit Sales people assumes equivalency and ends up worsening the lighting system.

Restaurants and some churches place importance on aesthetics and you have to be aware of how to make it work within the constraints of YOUR relevant localities.
 
lighting software

lighting software

I recommend AGI32 Lighting Design software. You can use it to model all different lighting fixtures and the "true-rendering" feature puts you right in the room. Depending on how good you are with ACAD and other design packages, you could design almost anything with their $900 s/w package.
Good luck
 
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