OPTIMISATION AND LIGHTING DESIGN

António Cardoso Costa ¹ ³
acc@dei.isep.ipp.pt


António Augusto Sousa ² ³

augusto.sousa@inescn.pt


Fernando Nunes Ferreira ² ³

fnf@fe.up.pt

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, the available tools for lighting design are limited in scope and inappropriate for interactive or creative use. In this paper, we present a different approach to the lighting design problem – a new methodology that includes the geometry and materials of the scene, the lighting design goals and a computational search for lighting solutions. The objective is to improve and shorten the lighting design cycle. The most common result is a set of luminaire characteristics that maximises the attainment of the user defined lighting goals. These goals may include different kinds of constraints or objectives. We also discuss the use of optimisation in lighting design, describe an algorithm that implements the proposed methodology and present several examples.

Key words: lighting design, optimisation, global illumination, light transport.



1 - Departamento de Engenharia Informática do ISEP-IPP, Rua S. Tomé, 4200 Porto, Portugal.
2 - INESC Porto, Praça da República 93 R/C, Apartado 4433, 4007 Porto CODEX, Portugal.
3 - Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua dos Bragas, 4099 Porto CODEX, Portugal.