lamps and lighting Jean-Jacques DAMELINCOURT

The request for quality of visual environment has reached a high levei and lighting engineering now requires an attentive examination of the numerous interacting aspects of human activities. Three classes of elements interact in viewing : the light source which produces the light, the object which reflects, diffuses and alters this light and finally the human visual system (including the brain) which interprets the information carried by the altered light. Good seeing conditions and comfortable visual environment firstly depend on the relationship between man and light in terns of visual performance, visual comfort and so on. But visual capability and comfort also depend on more complex factors of psychological or social nature. So, it should be kept in mind that lighting is not an exact science, lighting is as much an art as a science. 1 The visual system The visual system, eye and brain, is the determining element of the process. Figure 1 shows a simplified representation of a Cross-section through an eye and a stylised view of the retinal neural network. As can be secn in figure 1, the eye is basicdly a classical optic system with a lens of variable focal length, the crystalline lens, an irk diaphragm of variabie diameter, the pupil, and a special sensitive receptor, the retina.
Cwstalllne lens

Figure 1: the eye The lens can be made more or less bulbous by means of the ciliary muscles. The pupil diameter can be varied from approximately lmm to 8 mm. This variation of the pupiI diameter allows a rapid but limited contra1 of eye adaptation to the entrant light. Another possibility is offered by the chemical adaptation ofthe retina receptors,.Those

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adaptations are quickIy obtained for increasing Iuminosity levels, they are slow-acting for decreasing luminosity levels, this is well known by night drivers, Examination of the retina is more surprising and shows a strongry heterogeneous structure with two classes of photo receptors, cones and rods. These receptors arc different in shape but also in sensitivity and in spcctral response. Rods show a single spectral response with a maximum near 500nm but there are three wide overlapping spectrai responses for cones. These cones respanses lead to the important phenomenon of metamerism : one coloured sensation may be obtained from lights of distinct spectra1 compositions (figure 2). These two families of receptors are practically arranged in two different areas, The first area represent the major part of the retina and is covered by rods, These field of receptors is well designed for low intensity, low definition and coIorIess vision. The second area, named Fovea Centralis, is a little zone of a few degrees wide, near the vision axis. In this zone, the cones are individually served by optic nerve fibres so this small area, roughly one angutar degree of visual field, completely free of rods, is responsible for precise and coloured vision, This little detection area associated with the small pupil aperture makes the eye sensitive only to luminances. Luminance (measured in Cdm-2) represent the density of luminous flux per steradian per squqe meter of surface

viewed.
Rc'85}
RCI 95

Length wave In nrn

length wave In nm

Figure 2: Cones and rods sensibities and influence of spectra1 lamp radiation distribution an RCI Intcrconnections of individual signals achieved, through bipolar and ganglion cells, by horizontal and amacrine ceIls, allow the compression of information and the differential detection of special structures of shape, colour and direction. Unfortunately, the cones hardly work with a level of luminance lower than a few Cam2 (12 lux on a white paper Cd/mz roughly correspond to 3 Cd/mz).These values correspond to the boundary between photopic and mesopic viewing, so, as French people said, at night all cats are grey!

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The precise perception of the whole visual field is of course impossible directly with the small detection field defined by the fovea and the pupil. Fortunately, in normal vision, eyes are always moving and their movements, small oscillations and saccades, atlow the reconstruction in the brain of our whole visual environment. We are always seeing the
world in our brain! Finally near visual photopic conditions and at a high level of integration, three important functions and neuronal systems can be identified: - The first one is sensitive to luminance contrasts, movement and depth of focus. This first system does not react to persistent infomation or coloured fields. It is poorly suited for the analysis of small static stnrctures. - The second one is sensitive to coloured fields and grey shades, it does not detect movement, shapes and depth of focus. - The third one is sensitive to tiny coloured contrasts in quasi-static examination. In opposition to central cones, rods are believed to be grouped in large numbers, providing sensitivity for low light viewing at the expense of resolution. Rads also play a major role in the detection of unexpected events in peripheral environment. 2 Lighting conditions and sources It is now necessary to identify more easily attainabie parameters for light engineering. Because eye working conditions are practically limited to photopic and mesopic visions, we shall limit our investigations to these conditions. Visual performance is a quantity measurable in % of error for a given population. Some classical parameters which govern the visual performance are well known: angular size of the detail, cotour and luminance contrasts, luminance adaptation, luminance distributions, nature of the lighting system, presentation time, temporary or permanent vision diseases. Tho choice of determining parameter depends on the nature of the scene, taking into account remarks of paragraphe I. For photopic conditions, a good summary of angular size, luminance contrasts and luminance adaptation influence may be given in terms of contrast sensitivity versus spatial frequency with retinal illuminance adaptation as a parameter. It is to be noticed that this large spatial frequency response seems to be obtained by the parallel matching of separate channels. When displaying information it is of great consequence not to address two different sets of information to the same channel. For scotopic conditions (outside car headlights in total darkness) or mesopic conditions (in car headlights), human visual performance is considerably lowered, cones can not work properly and the visian of details, the depth of focus appraisal and colour judgement are greatly altered. Both, for photopic and mesopic conditions of viewing and due to the diffixsion of light in the eye, the visual performance may also be affected, through glare effect, by luminance distribution. This phenomenon increases when the luminance of the disturbing source increases or when the angular distance between the disturbing source and the vision axis decreases, Glare effect also increases with age. Consequently, a lighting system (power supply-source-Iuminaire) must be defined trough different aspects (photometry, colour appearance and colour rendition, time dependance, efficacity, simplicity) and must lead to the visual environment required for a given . activity,

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The power supply may be a 50Hz traditionnal supply or an electronic one, "intelligent" or not. The light source is characterised by its luminous flux in lumen, its luminous efficacy in lumen per Watt and its spectral distribution. The spectral distribution determines the colour quality of the source. In practice the colour quality of a source is defined by its colour temperature which gives the observer's perception of the light e.g. warn white, cold white, and its Colour Rendering Index (IICI<lOO) which expresses the extent to which artificial light is able to render a "reference" colour ofobjects. The light source is always endosed in a luminaire which defines the luminous intensity distribution of the luminous flux. When a rigorous control of the emission photometry is required, point or line sources are needed. So, the choice of lamps is of critical importance in the design of a Iighting installation

Figure 3 : Lamps characteristics (power P 0-3kW, efficacy q 0-200 lm/w, life L 015000h,

CRI 0-1 00, Tcp 0-6OOOK) for incandescent (tungsten), low pressure (LP) and high pressure (HP) lamps Figure 3 shows the main characteristics of different families of lamps, Incandescent and high pressure lamps are good candidates for point or linear sources. It is now possible to link main lighting applications to light sources properties. This is done in table I which try to gives correlations between a lighting system and a particular application. Of coarse other possibilities exist depending on the imagination of the lighting engineer! Table I F (klm) q (YW) Life (kh)
Frequent starting Instant light
Domestic Offices 1-10

Commercial
WNa

0.4-3 high 1-10

>S
high
>lo >10 high

2.5-5

>5

TPC(1000K) IRC 0-100 Sources 2-4 90-100 Yes 85-100 KO No No 2.5-6 85-100 Yes No

Projector (point source)

T,CF,F F,CF,MHL No F,CF,MHL,

Yes

Storage 1-10 high Roads 10-100 high City center 1-20 Sites 10-100

KO
>10 2-4

LPNa,HPNa BPNaorHg,MHL 85-100 NO NO NO MHL,FHF,WNa Yes gen No gen No MHL, HPNa, ...
Yes

No No

NO
No

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dean-Jacques Damelincourt, Professor at the Paul Sabatier University, was born in Paris in 1939. His received the Dipl-Ing. degree i electrical engineering from n E.N.S.E.E.I.H.T., Toulouse, France, in 1964 and the State Doctorate Degree i Science in n 1973, from the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. Consultant in Iighting engineering, he obtained the Alfred Mannier Prize from Association Franqaise de 1'Eclairage" in 1988. He is Senior Member of the ''Socii% des Elcctriciens et Electroniciens" and Head
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of the "Intense Photons Sources" team in the "Centre de Physique des Plasmas et Applications de Toulouse", (CNRS-ESA 5002).

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