Defining Far-Ultraviolet
In these uncertain times, there is increasingly persuasive evidence that “far-UV” radiation is effective in inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus and other pathogens, but without the health risks of germicidal ultraviolet radiation. Unfortunately, this technology has some...
Visual Glare and CIE 117-1995 – NEMA White Paper
The CIE Unified Glare Rating (UGR) metric has been use by the architectural lighting industry since it was first published by the CIE a quarter-century ago (CIE 117-1995, Discomfort Glare in Interior Lighting). Originally popularized by European lighting...
Horticultural Lighting Design and Déjà Vu
The phrase déjà vu translates from French as “already seen,” which nicely describes a current issue with horticultural lighting design. The introduction of LED technology may have kick-started horticultural lighting as an innovative industry, but we have yet to learn an important lesson from four decades of architectural lighting.
The Effect of Near-Infrared Radiation on Plants
Look at any textbook on botany and you will find this maxim: plants respond to optical radiation in the spectral range of 280 nm to 800 nm. Period, end of discussion. The question is, how was this spectral range (sometimes referred to as Photobiologically Active...
Specifying LED Colors for Horticultural Lighting
Abstract Whereas human vision relies on five opsins as photoreceptors, most plants have a wide variety of photopigments that are responsive to optical radiation from 280 nm to 800 nm. Beyond photosynthesis, plants rely on this radiation to control photomorphogenesis,...
Ultraviolet Radiation and Viral Misinformation
Let me begin with a smorgasbord of headlines: 99.9% of Covid-19 virus dead in 30 seconds with UV LEDs, says Tel Aviv research (www.malaysianow.com)UV-emitting LED lights found to kill coronavirus (www.sciencedaily.com)Study reveals UV LED lights effectively kill a...
Ultraviolet Radiation Terminology
A word of caution: I am going to be annoyingly pedantic here, but with good reason. The lighting industry has a century-long history of introducing unfamiliar technologies using familiar terminology. We later come to regret our choice of words when it becomes...
Spherical Irradiance and Aerosols
Lighting designers will be familiar with the illuminance of a planar surface, which is measured in lumens per square meter (or foot). The irradiance of a planar surface by a germicidal radiation source is conceptually the same, except that it is measured in watts per...
Defining Photosynthetic Photon Efficacy
There has been some discussion online and in presentations recently about the issue of photosynthetic photon flux. The argument goes as follows: Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is somewhat arbitrarily defined as optical radiation within the spectral range of...
Designing an Ultraviolet-C Disinfection System
Published 2020/05/29 by the Illuminating Engineering Society as https://www.ies.org/fires/designing-a-uv-c-germicidal-system/. Germicidal lamps emitting ultraviolet-C (UV-C) radiation have been in use since the 1930s (Wells and Wells 1936). These are most commonly...
Climate-based Annual Daylight Modelling for Greenhouses with Supplemental Electric Lighting
This is a preprint of a paper presented by the author at the International Society for Horticultural Lighting (ISHS)'s GreenSys 2019 conference in Angers, France in June 2019, and scheduled for publication in Acta Horticulturae . Abstract Recent advances in LED-based...
Greenhouses and Light Pollution
Supplemental electric lighting for greenhouses may be essential for extending the growing season in northern climates, but it comes with a not-so-hidden cost: environmental light pollution. The consequences of this pollution may range from irate neighbours in rural...
Ultraviolet Disinfection for Consumers
In these unfortunate times, it seems that everyone is looking for ways to help with the COVID-19 crisis. From a lighting designer’s perspective, one solution is obvious: ultraviolet radiation. We have known about the disinfectant properties of ultraviolet radiation...
Circadian Lighting – An Engineer’s Perspective
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng, FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 19/11/14. Whether you call it “circadian lighting,” “biologically effective lighting” or some other name, the principle is the same: the color and intensity of light can be used to...
Light Transmittance through Greenhouse Glazing
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 18/10/01. Look at a greenhouse manufacturer’s product specifications and you will see that the light transmittance of single-pane clear glass is typically 88 to 91 percent. Compared...
Far-Red Lighting and the Phytochromes
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published 18/06/04. Most LED grow lights feature blue and red LEDs whose peak wavelengths – approximately 450 nm for blue and 660 nm for red – have been chosen to coincide with the spectral...
The Science of Near-Infrared Lighting
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 18/07/13 There is a common-sense argument being presented in the popular media that since humans evolved under sunlight, our bodies must surely make use of all the solar energy...
Melanopic Green
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng. FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 18/09/03 Numerous medical studies have shown that exposure to blue light at night suppresses the production of melatonin by the pineal gland in our brains and so disrupts our...
Solid Angles
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/07/26 Do you suffer from math anxiety? A surprising number of us do (e.g., Wigfield 1988). I would tell you the exact numbers, but you would need to understand...
Understanding Mesopic Photometry
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2013/10/08 If you are involved with outdoor area or roadway lighting design, you will undoubtedly encounter such terms as mesopic multipliers, scotopic lumens, and S/P ratios,...
Thoughts on Color Rendering
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/01/05 UPDATE 14/10/06 - LightingEurope, the "Voice of the Lighting Industry," has just published their LightingEurope Position Paper on Color Quality. To summarize:...
The Kruithof Curve
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/01/12 UPDATE 16/04/09 - This metastudy: Fotois, S. 2106. "A Revised Kruithof Graph Based on Empirical Data," Leukos. (Published online 08 April 2016, DOI...
Sports Lighting Regulations
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/04/30 This blog article has a somewhat frustrating history. About a year ago, I was asked to volunteer my time to write a primer of light and color as it...
Solar Illumination
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/01/21 Lighting design is based in part on the reasonable assumption that photometric units have precise definitions. The candela, for example, has a precise...
Seeing Ultraviolet
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/10/26 UPDATE 15/11/08 - The following text briefly notes that some people can see near-ultraviolet radiation following cataract surgery due to the UV transmittance of...
Rethinking the Photometric Data File Format
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2017/03/01 If you perform lighting design calculations today, you can thank the efforts of the IES Computer Committee (IESCC) some thirty years ago. Its members recognized an...
Phytochrome and PSS
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/12/09 Horticultural lighting is currently one of the fastest-expanding markets in commercial lighting, with projected revenues of several billion dollars in less than a...
Photometry and Photosynthesis
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/12/10 UPDATE 15/04/13 -- This article was first published on December 10, 2014. A revised version was published as "LED Lighting for Horticulture" in the Mar/Apr 2015...
Mobile Light Pollution
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/01/21 At first glance, this appears to be an innocuous question: How much light pollution is attributable to automotive headlights? It is also a good question in that if...
Mesopic Photometry and Statistics
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/04/21 One of the joys of statistics is that you can never be proven wrong ... In a previous All Things Lighting article titled "Understanding Mesopic Photometry" (October...