Light D

Distrib
bution & Glare
G
Forr true vissual com
mfort, you don't just
j
nee
ed the rig
ght amo
ount of illluminatiion.
Lig
ght needss to be well
w distributed to
o avoid discomfo
d
ort.
Glare
Areas of high brightne
ess right next to areas of lo
ow brightn
ness cause
e glare, making
m
peo
ople
unccomfortable. For insttance, having a bare
e lightbulb for your desk
d
lamp may provide more than
t
eno
ough light. However, it would cause
c
more
e light to shine
s
direcctly into yo
our eyes th
han reflectss off
the desktop, making it difficult to
o read or do
d other ta
asks. Havin
ng a shade
e on the la
amp keeps the
ligh
ht from glaring into your
y
eyes while
w
brightly illumina
ating your desktop.

Unshielded
U
light from bulbs or th
he sun can cause glarre.
Lightt fixtures heelp distribu
ute and difffuse light, and
a avoid glare.
g

Glare
G
is espeecially imp
portant to control
c
wheen using da
aylighting, since direcct sunlight is
i so brightt.
Ligh
ht Levels a
and Glare Metrics
M
Glare is hard to measu
ure becausse how light is perce
eived is su
ubjective and
a
depen
nds on sevveral
facttors (includ
ding the ag
ge of the person).
p
Ho
owever, th
he baseline
e metric ussed for assessing glare is
lum
minance witthin a persson's field of view measured att a specificc vantage point
p
(cd/m
m2). This is the
amo
ount of light reflectin
ng off of a surface intto a viewerrs eye (see
e Measuring Light Levvels).

Som
me rules of thumb incclude:
Avoid conttrasts grea
ater than 10
0:1 when doing
d
taskss.
Avoid an absolute
a
illuminance value of 2,,000 lux orr greater. This is because most computer
c
monitors a
are 200 luxx, and you want
w
to sta
ay within 10x
1 of that monitor brightness.
A contrastt of 20:1 means occup
pants will see
s silhoue
ettes. This is
i often okkay for corrridors.
A contrastt of 50:1 ca
auses disco
omfort, so it
i should always be avoided.
In daylighting
d
g analysis, glare
g
is oftten assesse
ed using fiisheye view
ws at a wo
orker's head
d height. Also,
A
seve
eral shorth
hand metrrics have been deve
eloped to quantify glare, including the Unified Glare
G
Rating (UGR) and the Daylight
D
Glare Proba
ability (DGP
P). The hig
gher a DGP score, th
he more likely
peo
ople will exxperience glare
g
there..

Fisheye viiews of a workstation

w
studying glare.
g
With
h an HDR camera,
c
a false-color
f
overlay of
luminancee values on the imagee,
and a Radiancee analysis with
w the sam
me conditio
ons. Imagee from Loiso
os + Ubbellohde.
Tassk vs. Ambient Lightin
ng
Goo
od light d
distribution
n also req
quires the right balance betw
ween amb
bient lightting and task
ligh
hting. Taskk lighting is the light actually used to perform a task,
t
while
e ambient lighting is the
gen
neral backg
ground illumination in the room
m.
A person doin
ng detailed
d drawing may
m need 1,000 lux on
o their de
esktop surfface, but th
he person next
n
to them
t
doing
g ordinary paperwork only nee
eds 500 on their deskktop, and the rest of the room may
onlyy need 150
0 lux for pe
eople to co
omfortablyy move around the ro
oom and en
njoy the sp
pace. Amb
bient
ligh
hting requiires so mu
uch less brightness th
han task lighting tha
at addressiing them separately
s
is a
veryy common
n strategy to
t save ene
ergy in elecctric lightin
ng.
Som
me lighting
g design separates
s
a
ambient
and task lig
ghting by having diifferent sources for task
ligh
hting and a
ambient lig
ghting. Oth
her lighting
g design sp
plits the ou
utput of lig
ghts so tha
at the majo
ority
of each
e
light is directed
d for task liighting, an
nd a smalle
er percenta
age is diffu
usely sprea
ad for amb
bient
ligh
hting.

For visu
ual comfortt and energ
gy efficienccy, task and
d ambient lighting should be sep
parated.