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Relux Vision 1.1 Manual
Relux Vision 1.1 Manual
© Relux Informatik AG, Dornacherstrasse 377, CH-4018 Basel, Switzerland. Tel +41 61 333 07 70, Fax +41 61 333 07 72, info@relux.ch, www.relux.ch
Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Contents
Relux Professional
Relux Vision
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Preliminary remark
Radiance parameters:
A revised version of the manual is currently at work. We will publish the final version
of this manual at www.relux.ch.
This Manual is designed to assist users of the Relux Vision 1.1 light simulation
software in familiarising themselves with the field of light simulation.
The fundamentals of light calculation and light simulation are briefly explained in
order to better illustrate the differences in the way in which these methods are
employed.
For those making their first move into the field of light simulation, all the steps from
the installation of the program through to the output of results are presented and
explained in a comprehensible manner.
In what follows, menu entries are designated with and written in italics, while
menu sequences (command sequences) are written with a dash between the
individual commands. Mouse commands are designated with and written in italics.
Operating buttons are either depicted in graphic form or designated with and
written out in full between 'inverted commas'.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
I. Calculation methods
Lighting engineering calculations are based on the laws governing the transport of
radiation, and hence the transport of energy. Light simulations do not generally
employ physically-correct calculation methods.
In order to facilitate the user's understanding of the different programs and program
functions offered in Relux Professional and Relux Vision, the calculation methods will
be briefly explained and their particular features described.
Ray-tracing method
Ray-tracing attempts to trace the rays of light from a visible section of a picture back
to their origin.
The picture shows the example of two light rays with their reflections. One of the rays
reaches a light source after three reflections, while the other ends on a non-
luminescent surface. This means that the first area point in the blue circle is depicted
as very dark in the simulation. A greater degree of refinement can be achieved with
an increasing number of grid elements (picture elements) and if a greater number of
reflections taken into account.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
The computation algorithms for ray-tracing prgrams have now been developed to the
point where a combination of b and c (scatter and colour) can be taken into account.
Computers additionally have sufficient memory and a high enough computing speed
to offer.
Radiosity method
The second basic method employed for calculating radiation processes is the radiosity
method. This works on the basis of the energy conservation law (energy balance). In
other words, radiation is partially reflected on the surfaces until such time as all the
energy has been absorbed by the different surfaces. This method will only work with
fully diffuse areas, however, and it is impossible to portray mirroring and clear
window and glass surfaces.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
A prerequisite for this calculation is, first and foremost, a very fine breakdown of the
individual room areas into small area elements (dA1 - dAn). These area elements are
brought together in an n-to-n matrix and the energy exchange between all the
elements calculated.
The energy exchange, i.e. the light transmission, is established in the form of
transmission factor Fij. The transmission factor is the index for the amount of a
luminous flux that is refected from an area in a completely diffuse manner and
reaches a second area.
This is the double integral over the two areas (Ai, Aj) with the corresponding angle of
incidence and angle of emergence for the light ( , j) expressed in terms of the
mutually visible room angles.
1 (cos i • cos j )
Fij = dA j dAi
Ai (Ai ) (A j )
( • r2 )
The n-to-n matrix would mean that nn transmission factors had to be calculated. Since
area elements Ai, Aj mutually view each other from the same room angle, the
following applies:
Fij = Fji
From this, it can be concluded that only half the matrix elements need calculating and
entering on the matrix symmetrical to the diagonal.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
The drawbacks to this calculation method are the very elaborate establishment of the
many transmission factors. When allowance is made for shadow casting with the
relationships between the room angles, this even constitutes a long, drawn-out task
for present-day computer systems. Apart from this, only areas with completely
diffuse reflection (lambertian sources) can be used for this method. It is not possible
to make direct allowance for the influence of colours, and the complete algorithm
(reflection) must be re-calculated for each colour of a colour system (e.g. RGB,
CMYK) which increases the computing outlay many times over.
The positive aspects of this calculation method include the fact that it is possible to
employ the lighting engineering parameters (luminous intensity, luminance and
reflectance), which then leads to a very high-quality statement on the lighting
situation in the room in question, providing that the room areas all have more or less
the same diffuse reflection.
The lighting engineering calculation methods were developed with a special view to
the lighting engineering requirements. These represented a compromise between the
desired level of accuracy and the available computing capacity.
Utilisation method
The utilisation method is a reduced radiosity method; it uses only the smallest
possible number of surfaces in a cuboid-shaped room. The room is divided up into the
three areas of ceiling (upper delimitation), reference plane (lower delimitation) and
walls (lateral delimitation).
The transposition factors can be determined very easily in this reduced model and the
illuminances calculated on the basis of the completely diffuse degrees of reflection.
So-called utilisation tables were compiled to speed up the process of lighting
planning. The luminaires were classified on the basis of luminous flux components,
luminous flux upwards, downwards and on the reference plane. Using a characteristic
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
value for the room – room index k – and the reflectances it was possible to rapidly
determine the number of luminaires for a specific room.
Zonal-cavity method
This is an improved utilisation model developed for use on computers. The room is
described more accurately through three sub-rooms, and the luminous fluxes from
luminaires to the surfaces are calculated on the basis of their light distribution curves.
Extending this method, Relux additionally converts polygonal rooms into the
equivalent rectangular rooms. These calculations provide an approximate guide to the
number of luminaires required. It should be noted here that no allowance is made for
shadows or for different degrees of reflection from partial surfaces in Relux.
Point-to-point calculation
The basis for the point-to-point calculation is, once again, a reduced radiosity model.
Not all the inter-reflections are taken into account, but just a limited number. Here
again, the reflection is based on completely diffuse surfaces.
The calculation runs through one or more iteration steps, starting from the direct
illuminances on individual surface elements; the smaller the surface elements, the
more precise the result.
With the advent of computers, it also became possible for engineers to calculate light
distribution, although only in rectangular, non-furnished rooms to begin with. The
rooms and room surfaces were divided up into rectangular elements and the central
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
The reflection was divided into a completely diffuse, reflected component and a
scattered, reflected component. Despite this, no information is available on the
reflected object for a presentation, and no object is visible in a mirror. Considerably
smaller part surfaces (details) need to be taken into account before this becomes
possible.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Light simulation
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
- Relux Professional
- Relux Vision
Relux Professional
Relux Vision
Relux Vision is a program for calculating and depicting realistic lighting simulations on
the basis of the "Radiance" software developed by EPFL (Lausanne) and the Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory (USA). This program has the same user interface as Relux
Professional and works in "Point-to-point calculation mode with energy-related ray
tracing".
Relux Professional already offers input facilities for the spectral reflection properties of
surfaces and material allocation for reflecting and transparent elements.
The calculation supplies either highly realistic simulation pictures and illuminance
diagrams. These calculations can be run through with artificial light and daylight
under different sky conditions. Furthermoere get the Relux Professional a new tool
to calculate UGRs (UGR = Unified Glare Ratings) from varible positions.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
In "Relux Vision", projects are worked on in the same way as in "Relux Professional".
A new project is thus set up by pressing the button in the top left-hand corner:
A floor plan can be generated by pressing either buttons 7 and 8 (see screenshot) in
the top toolbar:
7: Compile a floor plan for an interior room
8: Compile a plan an outdoor area
9: Compile a plan for a road project
(no material needs to be entered for Vision)
The dialog that follows for entering the room and area dimensions already requires
the initial input of a material/colour. In the further course of work on the project, it is
possible to specify the material/colour for all the actual room elements. The topic of
material and colour will be covered first in what follows.
In the case of Relux, materials are entered with their reflectance and their colour.
Vision, however, offers further options for materials.
If no materials have been defined in the Vision project as yet, the difference will only
be visible from the additional 'Edit materials' button. This appears in each object
dialog that describes surfaces in "Vision".
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Relux Vision
Note: the reflectance can also be entered directly into a colour field via the keyboard
in the colour dialog. The corresponding colour change is then seen after leaving the
field.
Colour selection is identical in both systems. Six systems are available for colour
selection and more details will be given of these later:
- Palette - selection from standard colours
- Colour selection - definition of the colour on the basis of the RGB system
- Spektral distribution - specification of the spectral reflection curve
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
In order to edit the materials in "Vision", you must first generate new materials by
selecting 'Edit materials' and specifying the physical properties: colour,
reflectance, gloss and roughness, or you can select materials from the library that
contains the basic materials.
Colour
indices
Material list
Material
values
NB:
In "Vision", it is possible to specify different material definitions for all new
projects in the Setup-Options-Defaults dialog.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
In the material dialog, the the two buttons 'Add material ...' and 'Select material
...' lead to the same selection dialog. The difference is that for 'Add material ...' a
new material data record is set up while, for 'Select material ...' the marked
material is modified.
Different materials systems are available in the left-hand field in this selection dialog:
Simple Basic materials from the "Radiance System" are made available
without any further possibility of intervention
Standard A branched selection tree appears; next step:
materials - Material types (e.g. metals, woods, glass, etc.)
- Application fields (e.g. wall, floor, windows, etc.)
Internet For downloading material definitions from Relux Informatik's
database homepage
Let us start with the first material list (see screenshot above). This lists materials that
can be used via a very simple structure, or via very simple input parameters. None of
the materials with the exception of the last one, 'Picture', involve any further-
reaching structures. They are selected from the list and the dialog closed with
'Select'.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Material
Colour setting: designation
red, green, blue
Reflectance and
transmittance
Surface properties:
Gloss, roughness
Transmission
properties:
Transmission,
transmitted gloss
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
A number of standard materials are already available as a material library, and the
surface parameters either cannot be processed or can only be processed to a
limited extent. It is not possible to describe all materials here, particularly since
Relux Informatik AG will be constantly adding new materials to the standard library
as they become available.
NB:
• The materials are always accompanied by a short descriptive text.
• The possible settings always depend on the basic material whose properties are
stored in a definition file.
• The formats of material definition data can be found in the Internet under
"http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/refer/ray.html"
To conclude the section on editing the material, a number of details will be given
regarding the topic of colour or colour selection. Nearly all the materials apart from a
few from the material library, can be allocated any desired colours from the RGB
colour space. The "Relux" package offers six different selection processes for this, as
already mentioned.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
For the RAL colours (RAL = State The second RAL system was only
Committee for Terms of Delivery), established in 1992. This has 1688
different colour zones were allocated to colours. The colour code is made up of
numerical groups (RAL groups). A total of three groups:
194 colours were defined and allocated • three-digit colour code:
four-digit numbers and colour names. 000 grey shades, the remaining
colours are taken from the colour
circle, starting with red and going via
orange, yellow, green and blue to
violet
• two-digit brightness value
• two-digit colour value (saturation)
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
IV. Calculations
The preparations for a visualisation in "Vision" involve the same steps as those for a
light calculation in "Relux":
1. Set up a project
2. Enter the floor plan
3. Develop the layout of the room with furniture and the design of the wall
surfaces (windows, doors, pictures)
4. – For artificial light calculations: the selection and positioning of luminaires
– For daylight: at least one window or a skylight
The project shown in the diagram above will be taken as an example here. This is a
rectangular room with a window, a door, a desk with a wooden working surface, and
an office chair, a glass partition wall and, behind this, a second desk with a
superimposed "virtual measuring surface" and a spotlight directed at the glass wall.
Once the layout of the room – the scene – has been completed, it is possible to call
up the visualisation with 'Light calculation Relux Vision'. Further inputs are required
here, in the same way as for light calculations.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Lighting
Artificial light Only luminaires are calculated as light sources
Windows are depicted as black (night)
Artificial light and All artificial light sources and daylight are taken
daylight into account
Next come the settings for the daylight calculations with the different sky conditions,
together with the date and time. The time is converted into so-called "true local time"
using the date and the longitude entered in the Relux Project. This essentially
determines the position of the sun and hence the luminance distribution of the sky.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Sky type
Clear sky according Only the radiation of the sky is taken into account,
to CIE without the radiation due to the sun
CIE Publication No. 22 of 1973
Overcast sky to CIE The CIE defines an overcast sky with an uneven
light distribution here, deviating slightly from DIN
5034 Part 2.
CIE Publication No. 22 of 1973
Uniformly overcast This sky type has been described in DIN 5034 Part
sky 2 with a specific luminance for all directions, i.e.
determined solely by the angle of the point in the
sky to the zenith
The setting for 'picture quality' determines the resolution of the presentation.
• The 'low' setting only uses the number of pixels entered on the 'Views- Size
of picture' filing card. The 'Inter-reflection' entry for the program to calculate
the diffuse area brightnesses is not evaluated.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
In the extended dialog, the settings 'Picture quality' and 'Basic setting' are
additionally available.
By pressing the checkbutton 'with outside wall surfaces (for outdoor views)' it is
possible to have all the walls shown for the views. If the point of observation is not
inside the room, then only the outdoor view is calculated.
The user must then set which calculations the Vision module is to carry out; only the
calculation of views, i.e. presentations, and/or the calculation of the illuminances as
selected in the filing-card 'Grid measuring areas'.
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The 'Views' dialog page has the same structure as the 'Variable 3D-view' in Relux. It
also offers the possibility of defining additional views, as well as containing the setting
for the 'Picture size' of the visualisations and a preview button in order to test views.
With the '+' and '-' buttons, it is possible to incorporate and delete additional
views. Once a new view has been added, it can be modified with the six movement
buttons (lower-higher; left-right; backwards-forwards) and the angle settings (below
and to the right alongside the presentation. The values can also be entered
numerically directly into the individual fields, however.
Once a calculation has been performed, the calculated views are marked in yellow
and can be blocked with the 'Lock calculated views' button. This means that they
will not be calculated again during the subsequent calculation run, but the pictures
will be retained in the project until the room geometry or something else is changed.
In this way, it is possible to calculate different views (or calculation settings) one after
the other. This marks a major advantage for time-intensive calculations in particular.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
The Vision module incorporates facilities for generating and allocating additional
geometries for wall elements (windows, doors, pictures). Additional geometries are
elements such as window frames and window sills, etc.
The input dialogs for the wall elements contain not only the material selection for the
element itself but also a selection box for the desired additional geometry; the '...'
button is used to open a separate dialog for editing and compiling the additional
geometries.
The parameters are aligned to the element type in question (window, door or
picture). If no additional geometry is selected for the element, then a simple hole in
the wall is generated. These elements can then also be switched on or off in their
entirety for the calculation in the Relux Vision calculation options.
NB:
It is now also possible to enter doors with a height above the ground in Relux for
planning multi-storey buildings.
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V. Outputs
The visualisations of the selected views are displayed as a Relux window immediately
the calculation is completed. They are additionally available as options under
'Output-Vision Results' or 'Output-All Outputs' in the left-hand field under 'Vision-
Results'.
In the example that has been given, all the calculations and visualisations have been
performed. In most cases, not all the outputs will be available to you in the output
dialog.
With the outputs for the glare rating, in particular, it is important to note the
difference compared with calculations in Relux. In the example, the glass wall is in
front of "desk 2" and the spot light behind this is directed straight at the desk.
NB:
In Relux, the glass wall is regarded as a black wall, opaque to light, for purposes of
the glare rating and for calculating the illuminances.
Please note that, in cases such as this, you will obtain completely different results
from the two programs.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Two possibilities are available for the output and further processing of the
visualisation:
- Open the presentation in Relux ( 'Output-Vision-Results') and generate a
Bitmap file via the menu 'File-Print-To File'.
(The file contains a full printed page with project data, the minimum and
maximum luminance and a footer; i.e. the file size is some 30 MByte)
- Have the presentation displayed and, using the right-hand mouse button,
call up the 'Context menu'. The options 'Copy picture' and 'Save picture' are
available in the context menu. The picture size corresponds directly to the
number of pixels specified in the calculation ('Light calculation-Relux Vision-
Views').
Copy picture: Places the picture in the Windows clipboard and can be
incorporated in other programs as a graphic with the
command 'Insert'
Save picture: A dialog is opened for the input of a file name, and a number
of different picture formats are available for saving the
picture;
The context menu additionally contains the 'Exposure' command for setting the
brightness. The dialog has a sliding controller which can be used to adjust the
brightness in the same way as for adjusting a film speed or exposure time when
taking photographs. Negative values reduce the brightness while positive values
increase it.
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Concise User Manual Relux Vision 1.1
Adress
Relux Informatik AG
Dornacherstrasse 377
Postfach
CH-4018 Basel
Switzerland
Web. www.relux.ch
e-mail support@relux.ch
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