Advanced Materials Research Vols 383-390 (2012) pp 4810-4815 Online: 2011-11-22

© (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.383-390.4810

Glare Prediction Method Based on SPEOS Simulation for Civil Airplane

Flight Deck
MA Zhi1, a, ZHANG Wei1, b,YU JinHai2, c, LI BaoFeng2, d
1
College of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xi’an, China
2
Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute, COMAC, Shanghai, China
a
mazhi1982@126.com, b weizhangxian@nwpu.edu.cn, c yujinhai@comac.cc, d

libaofeng@comac.cc

Keywords: Glare; Simulation; Unified Glare Rating; SPEOS software, Flight deck

Abstract. Glare is a key factor that influencing the visual performance in light conditions of flight
deck, and glare source in flight deck is very complex. It is difficult to directly evaluate the complex
glare source, such as non-uniform glare, irregular shape glare and indirect glare using current glare
equations. In this paper, a novel method based on SPEOS simulation to predict several types of
glare is proposed. Simulation of glare scene is carried out using SPEOS software. Glare source is
detected by secondary development on SPEOS. Source luminance, background luminance, position
index and solid angle of source are calculated by secondary development as well. And then, the
desired glare index can be computed. Finally, Unified Glare Rating(UGR) equation is utilized as an
example to predict the glare. The results indicate that the proposed method can compute glare index
automatically and quickly, and is useful in illumination design of flight deck.

Introduction
More and more visual information has to be displayed in a civil airplane flight deck. For safety
reasons, and in order to avoid tiredness this information must be seen as clearly as possible by the
aircraft pilot in any light conditions. On the other hand, visual comfort has been a factor what need
be taken into account in the flight deck designing. Glare is a strong factor to influence visual
performance in light conditions of the flight deck, and it is important to predict glare in flight deck
design.
The glare source of flight deck is very complex, including non-uniform glare source, irregular
shape glare source and indirect glare source, etc. Current glare indices cannot reliably evaluate the
level of discomfort glare from daylight in a working environment with complex non-uniform glare
sources and irregular shape glare source. This is because that many of the existing glare equations
were developed for the evaluation of discomfort glare from small artificial light sources.
Furthermore, as it is very difficult to compute luminance of reflective glare source, these indices
cannot evaluate indirect glare, such as reflective glare source.
Nowadays, the computer accurate simulation is an effectual method to solve this problem.
Wienold[1]proposed a new index, called “daylight glare probability (DGP)”, what can evaluate
glare from a venetian blind system. They developed new evaluation tool evalglare based on
RADIANCE enables assessments of possible glare problems with simulated RADIANCE pictures.
Mendoza’s study[2]presents a comparative study between a physical daylight glare monitoring
evaluation with that from a computer based tool (Ecotect/Radiance).
So, we developed a new evaluation method based on SPEOS software to evaluate glare of non-
uniform source, irregular shape source and indirect glare, especially in flight deck environment, as
shown in Fig. 1. The method needs three stages. Firstly, simulation of glare scene is carried out
using SPEOS software. Secondly, glare source is detected using secondary development. The last
stage computes source luminance, background luminance and position index and solid angle of
source, and computes whatever glare index is desired.

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 Advanced Materials Research Vols. 383-390 4811

Simulation of Glare Scene

In current study, Radiance has been a computer based tool to evaluate glare. Radiance has the
advantage over other software to specify different sky conditions as well as the calculation of
daylight glare[1-3]. In addition Radiance allows displaying the simulation results as false colour
images, numerical values and contour mappings. But, Radiance has also some disadvantage.
Radiance works under a UNIX platform which may be quite complex for a non UNIX user[2], and it
is difficult to model the scene.

Optical properties
Source luminance

Background luminance
Daylight Glare
Scene Position index indices
Solid angle of source
Simulation

CATIA V5
SPEOS
Secondary development

Fig. 1 Glare prediction method based on SPEOS

In this paper, we choose SPEOS software to carry out computer simulations. The software has
the advantage what Radiance has, and also has been available inside CATIA V5. It includes real
light emission, exact instrument geometry and 3D environment. Due to its physics based approach
to light, a real life measured library of materials is used to calculate the level of reflection of light
anywhere in the scene.
Modeling of Scene. With SPEOS any kind of light source can be modeled by entering geometry
and defining its emission properties, such as the intensity distribution and the spectrum of the
luminaire. Daylight glare can be simulated using CIE standard general sky by SPEOS software. The
simulation result of scene model is shown in Fig. 2. The light conditions include daylight and
reflective light.

Fig. 2 Simulation model of scene. The left is a room(6m×3.6m×2.8m), and the right is a
flight deck.
Photometric Simulation. Through photometric simulation, we can have information about the
result we are studying, such as luminance, color, etc. Fig. 3 is the result of luminance levels.

Fig. 3 Luminance levels

4812 Manufacturing Science and Technology, ICMST2011

Detection of Glare Sources

Three principal methods were used for automatic detection of glare sources:
1).Calculate the average luminance of the entire picture and count every section as a glare source
that is x-times higher than the average luminance;
2).Take a fixed value and count every section as a glare source that is higher than the fixed
value;
3).Calculate the average luminance of a given zone (task area) and count every section as a glare
source that is x-times higher than the average luminance of this zone.
The first method was implemented in the RADIANCE findglare tool. For very bright scenes
only few parts or nothing could be detected, although the facade was obviously a glare source.
Reducing the x-factor can increase the sensitivity to detect glare sources in a scene, but might lead
to “over-detecting” potential glare sources in darker scenes.
The second method, which applied a fixed luminance value as threshold does not take into
account eye adaptation. This method was therefore not considered to be a reliable method for
lighting scenes with substantial luminance variations.
The last method was used in Wienold’s new evaluation method for daylight environment[1]. Each
pixel with a luminance value four times higher than the average task-zone luminance was treated as
a glare source. This detection sensitivity factor can be changed.
In this paper, we use the first method to detect glare sources as same as RADIANCE. The
detected result is shown in Fig. 4, Fig. 5.

Fig. 4 Glare detected result of the room shown in Fig. 1. When the threshold is different,
the detected result of glare is different.

Fig. 5 Glare detected result of the flight deck shown in Fig. 1. When the threshold is
different, the detected result of glare is different. Reducing the threshold can increase the range to
glare sources.

Calculation of Glare Index

Several discomfort glare indices have been developed to assess glare from artificial light sources.
These include:
British Glare Index (BGI)[4]
CIE Glare Index (CGI)[5]
Unified Glare Rating (UGR)[6]
And, there are several glare indices developed to evaluate the glare caused by daylight. These
include:
Daylight Glare Index (DGI)[7]
New Daylight Glare Index (DGIN)[3,8]
 Advanced Materials Research Vols. 383-390 4813

Daylight Glare Probability (DGP)[1]

In general, all these equations draw upon the four physical parameters:
The luminance of the glare source: the brighter the source, the higher the index;
The background luminance: the general field of luminance controlling the adaptation levels of
the observer’s eye. The brighter the room, the lower the index;
The position index: the angular displacement of source from the observer’s line of sight. The
further from the centre of vision, the lower the index;
The solid angle: the larger the area, the higher the index.
Especially, the vertical eye illuminance is also considered as a primary factor influencing glare
index in the DGP[1] .
Source Luminance (L). The source luminance is the average luminance of all pixel of source.
Through photometric simulation in SPEOS software, luminance levels can be obtained, see Fig. 3.
The luminance value of each pixel is obtained by the function “GetValue()”.
Background Luminance (Lb). The background luminance is luminance of the field of view, not
including source luminance, and called adaption luminance in some study. It can be calculated by
Lb=total luminance － Ls. (1)
Position Index (p). The position index of a source, P, is an inverse measure of the relative
sensitivity to a glare source at different position throughout the field of view. There are two
methods to calculate position index.
The first method is Guth position index, where is given by [6]
P=exp [(35.2－0.31889α－1.22e－2α/9)10－3β
(21＋0.26667α－0.002936α2)10－5β2]. (2)
where
α=angle from vertical of the plane containing the source and the line of sight (Fig. 6), in degrees,
β=angle between the line of sight and the line from the observer to the source.
The mapping of position index is shown in Fig. 7. The map is obtained by secondary
development.

Fig. 6 Geometry defining position index[6]

Fig. 7 The mapping of position index

Through study, Iwata[9]found that sensitivity to glare caused by a source located below the line
of vision is greater than sensitivity to glare caused by a source located above the line of vision.
Then, a new method to calculate the position index was developed; it could be expressed by this
equation:
P=1＋0.8×R/D (R<0.6D)
P=1＋0.6×R/D (R>=0.6D)
R2=H2＋Y2 (3)
4814 Manufacturing Science and Technology, ICMST2011

where
R=distance between source and fixation point (m),
D=distance from eye to vertical plane on which a source is located (m),
H=vertical distance between source and fixation point (m),
Y=horizontal distance between source and fixation point (m).
Solid Angle of Source (ω). Solid angle (ω) is a measure of that portion of space about a point
bounded by a conic surface whose vertex is at the point. It is defined as the ratio of intercepted
surface area of a sphere centered on that point to the square of the sphere's radius. It is expressed in
steradians[6] .
Solid angle is given by the following equation:
Solid angle=A cosθ/l2 (4)
where
A= area of source,
l= distance between eye and source,
θ=angle from source to vertical plane on which a source is located.

Fig. 8 Dimensions required for calculating solid angle[6]

If A is much smaller than l, (4) can be simplified:
ω=A/l2 (5)

Calculation of UGR. By calculating, the source luminance, the background luminance, the
position index and the solid of angle in a room shown in Fig. 1 as follows:

Lb=13.17cd/m2,
L=2036cd/m2,
ω=0.0078sr,
p=3.17.
Now, we use UGR as an example to predict the glare index of the room. The UGR equation is[6]

. (6)
where
UGR=Unified Glare Rating,
Lb= the background luminance (cd/m2),
Li= the luminance of the ith part of the source (cd/m2),
ωi=the solid angle of the ith part of the source (sr),
pi= the position index of the ith part of the source.
Adding parameter values into the UGR equation to compute glare index, we can obtain the value
of UGR, what is 18.25. The value shows that people will feel wild discomfort, but it is acceptable.

Summary
Several glare indices based on current glare equations cannot utilized to evaluate non-uniform glare,
irregular shape glare and indirect glare correctly. Thus, we developed a novel method based on
SPEOS software to predict several types of glare. SPEOS software is chosen to simulate the glare
scene. Based on secondary development on SPEOS, glare sources can be detected automatically.
 Advanced Materials Research Vols. 383-390 4815

After calculating source luminance, background luminance position index, solid angle of source, the
desired glare index can be computed. The results indicate that the method can compute glare index
automatically and quickly, and has the advantage of short cycle and low cost for the evaluation of
illumination design of flight deck, and has good engineering application value.
As mention above, some existing glare equations were developed for evaluation of discomfort
glare from small artificial light sources, and other glare equations were developed for evaluation of
discomfort glare from daylight coming from window. Thus, it is improper to evaluate daylight glare
and reflective glare from cloud layer of flight deck in the high altitude using these equations. In
future work, we will develop new glare index to evaluate these glare.

Acknowledgment
This research was supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Number:
2010CB734106).

References
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[3] A. Nazzal, “A new evaluation method for daylight discomfort glare,” International Journal of
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[5] J. C. LOWSON, "Practical application of the Einhorn (CIE) Glare Index formula," Lighting
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[6] The IESNA LIGHTING HANDBOOK, Ninth Edition, New York: IESNA, 2000.
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Manufacturing Science and Technology, ICMST2011
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.383-390

Glare Prediction Method Based on SPEOS Simulation for Civil Airplane Flight Deck
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.383-390.4810