Photometrics

[stmlandplan]

Does anyone know of a good lighting program that enables you to plot photometrics (light readings on the ground)for outdoror lighting designs using manufacturer's IES files?

[stmlandplan]

I've answered my own question. With teh help of Frank B. at VW it appears that VW Spotlight is capable of producing Light Density plots. My problem however is that the upgrade to 2010 is cost prohibitive at this time. I have finally come across a $100 lighting design software that does exactly what I need. www.visuallightingsoftware.com Its not a robust drafting package but once you get the hang of it you can pretty much control the essentials.

Hey for $100 for the professional edition this is the best value I have seen in a long long time. It's even set for LEED credit analysis.

[michaelk]

I'm pretty sure that the lighting calculation in Spotlight 2010 is exactly the same as the lighting calculation in Spotlight 2008. (At least I haven't noticed any difference.)

So if you already have spotlight, getting 2010 won't get you better calculations. And it would be a lot of work to make it work in a landscape application. And Spotlight doesn't use IES data - it just calculates direct beams of light. So it would have a hard time w/ point sources.

Does Visual import your .vwx drawing? I was just looking at another similar program that seems to be mac based: http://www.ltblight.com/index.html. It looks like it is a plug-in for VW. No need to leave VW & export... Anybody tried it yet?

[michaelk]

Hmmmm. It might not work after all. I tried to download the demo but it doesn't run. Emailed the company and the email bounced back. Bummer.

[stmlandplan]

Visual does not recognize vwx drawings but it does dwg/dxf.