Abstract
Quantifying and comparing light environments are crucial for interior lighting, architecture and visual ergonomics. Yet, current methods only catch a small subset of the parameters that constitute a light environment, and rarely account for the light that reaches the eye. Here, we describe a new method, the environmental light field (ELF) method, which quantifies all essential features that characterize a light environment, including important aspects that have previously been overlooked. The ELF method uses a calibrated digital image sensor with wide-angle optics to record the radiances that would reach the eyes of people in the environment. As a function of elevation angle, it quantifies the absolute photon flux, its spectral composition in red-green-blue resolution as well as its variation (contrast-span). Together these values provide a complete description of the factors that characterize a light environment. The ELF method thus offers a powerful and convenient tool for the assessment and comparison of light environments. We also present a graphic standard for easy comparison of light environments, and show that different natural and artificial environments have characteristic distributions of light.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 20210184 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of the Royal Society, Interface |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 177 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 Apr 1 |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Biophysics
Free keywords
- camera
- environmental light
- environmental light field
- human vision
- measurement method
- radiometry