LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

LdG-2
Vertical Illuminance
Introduction
When I first started my career, I was told by many Engineers that light planning is only a matter of
calculation the light on working plane which is in most cases around 0.8m from floor level, which means
planning the light only for horizontal spaces!
Later I found out in most cases that light beams and scallops are more visible on vertical not horizontal
which would make vertical as important as horizontal if not more important!
For this guide the calculation and rendering was mad by DIALux evo software which is available as a free
software from www.DIALux.com

Light shape what is called light scalloping is very visible on wall and makes the vertical surfaces very important
during lighting design stage.

This guide will help you plan the lighting by having proper offset to achieve
1-Grazing light (light scalloping) by different beam and offset
2- Uniform grazing light
3- Uniform wallwashing
4-Accent for objects on wall

Grazing (light scalloping)

Grazing light might not be the best option but when it is made it should be made right without making odd
shape and destroying the space by weird light scalloping.
To avoid bad light scalloping first you should know the following:
1-The difference between round and square downlight

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

2- The beam angle of the luminaire

3-The light distribution Quality (main beam and secondary beam)
4- The effect of light with different offset from wall(distance from wall)
5- The alignment of scallops with architectural lines.
6- Intensity of lighting scallops
7-LED Downlight with scallops.

The difference between round and square downlight

The light scallop of a round downlight is different from a square downlight

Trapezoid beam of a square Cone beam of around

downlight downlight

Rendering made by DIALux evo

Square downlight with Trapezoid beam (right)
Round downlight with Cone beam (left)

It should be noted that downlight with lens will make the beam softer.

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Also a square downlight with round opening will have a cone beam
The Trapezoid beam will be produced when the downlight opening is square not
the housing or frame.

Cone beam of round downlight Trapezoid beam of a square downlight

The beam angle of the luminaire

Different beam angle will have different scallop size on wall

From right to left

Narrow spot 5o
Spot 14o
Flood 28o
Wide flood 45o

The light distribution Quality (main beam and secondary beam)

while many bad downlights or spotlights have lots of lines around the main beam angle there are
good downlights that have soft beam edges

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

Downlight with many lines for Downlight with soft beam edge
main and secondary beam

The beam and light distribution is produced by either lamp or Luminaire.

A reflector lamp without any additional optical system has different effect that lamp with additional
optical system.

QR-CB 51(MR16) 50 watt 10o in a QR-CB 51 (MR16) 50 watt 10o in a

luminaire with additional Reflector luminaire with trim only no reflector

Additional Reflector could improve the beam quality and make the light distribution better as could
be seen from above rendering after using the manufacture’s photometric data in I evo.
It should be noted that usually the main purpose of a luminaire reflector is to prevent glare and
improve the visual comfort, so it is not always you get better scalloping.

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Also using different reflector lamp with similar beam angle will produce completely different
scalloping

QR-51 50 W 12 V 10° GU5.3 QR-111 50 W 12 V 6° G53

(MR 16) (AR-111)

Selecting the lamp and its optical system will make a big different scalloping result.
It is always good to check the luminaire in real mock-up and use the correct photometric to get the
same in reality.
I have experienced many cases where engineers calculate from one manufacture and use
specification of another one! , which could have completely different results.
Lighting software like I will get accurate results only if right inputs are used and the most important
parameter is selecting the right photometric.

The effect of light with different offset from wall(distance from wall)
The scallop size on wall will be affected also from the offset from wall (how far the center of
luminaire from wall).
Usually all offset when mentioned it means from center of luminaire, so in this Guide all offset are
from center of luminaire to wall.
The more offset from wall the lower the scallop from top of the wall as could be seen from bellow
rendering.

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

150 mm produce scallop close to top of 500 mm produce scallop lower will less
wall intensity than 150 mm offset

To avoid having different scalloping size in one room it is good to keep the same offset from walls
identical, having one offset from one wall different from another will make different scallops

When offset are different (ab) then Identical offset (a=b) have same scallops
scallops are different as well The corner downlight are @ 45o

The alignment of scallops with architectural lines

The lighting planner or lighting designer should understand the architectural space, if there is any

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lines , groves in the vertical then the lighting should be aligned to achieve good result, otherwise
lighting could make scallops that not in line with architectural vertical lines

The scallops are not aligned with The scallops are aligned with
architectural vertical lines architectural vertical lines

The scallops are aligned with The scallops are aligned with
architectural vertical lines architectural vertical lines

The scallops are not aligned with architectural vertical lines

Intensity of lighting scallops

The intensity of lighting scallops should not be high , using computer software like I could help the

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

designer to make the right choice for the design.

Soft scallops Strong scallops

LED Downlight with scallops

LED is an efficient lamp source that is expected to replace all conventional lamp sources soon,
however there are very different quality of LED ranging from very poor to excellent LED when it
comes to scallop shape and color, so it is strongly advisable to check the downlight in a real
physical mock.
One of the criteria is how different in color are the LEDs (the different of white light from one LED
to another) which called MacAdam ellipse or SDCM (Standard Deviation Color Matching)
The products used for the next guide from ERCO has less than 2 SDCM which means no color
visible to human eye.
4 Step MacAdam ellipse or
SDCM is visible to human eye

2- step MacAdam ellipse

(SDCM) are not visible

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

The bad quality of scallop shape and the

difference in color make LED very poor
in architecture.

A lot of difference in color SDCM >4 SDCM <2

Vertical Planner Guide for Grazing and Scalloping effect

In the following rendering I used some ERCO luminaire with different beam angle to show the
different effects, all lamp source were LED and to ensure right planning I made real mock up to see
the difference between the scallop rendered by I evo and the physical mock. The results of I evo
were very accurate and ERCO photometrics were very precise as well.
Unfortunately not all manufacturer provide precise photometric, so I strongly recommend to use
well know manufacture for accurate photometrics and ideally should be tested in mock-up to
achieve good results.

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

Physical mock up @ ERCO Mock Room Rendered Image using the same ERCO
Dubai Office (LED <2 SDCM) ULD photometric in I evo

In the following guides which is called Vertical Illuminance Guide (VIG) I used offset and spacing as
follows:
All offset are from center of luminaire to wall
All spacing are between center of luminaires

VIG-1 VIG-2
Beam Narrow Spot 5o Beam Spot 15o
Offset 150 mm Offset 250 mm
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Spacing 500 mm Spacing 700 mm

Luminaire ERCO 87629 Luminaire ERCO 87634

VIG-3 VIG-4
Beam Food 27o Beam Wide Flood 50o
Offset 300 mm Offset 400 mm
Spacing 1000 mm Spacing 1000 mm
Luminaire ERCO 87639 Luminaire ERCO 87645

VIG-5 VIG-6

Beam 5o and 27o Beam 5o and 47o

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Offset 150 mm Offset 150 mm

Spacing 500 mm Spacing 750 mm
Luminaire ERCO 87629 Luminaire ERCO 87629
ERCO 87639 (Dimmed to ERCO 40014 (Dimmed to
15%) 10%)

Uniform grazing light

Uniform Grazing is used to avoid the scalloping effect of light on wall and could be done perfectly
with LED liner luminaire like ERCO Lightgap Luminaire.
The luminaire in a cove of architecture in a continuous row.

Uniform Grazing is perfect light for Textured wall.

Uniform wallwashing
Wallwashing is a technique that is makes the lighting design for a wall free from any bad scallops
and enhance architectural, as a matter of fact I prefer this solution and find it much better than
grazing light with scalloping effects simply because it shows wall clean and provide a sort of
indirect lighting.

Uniform wallwashing enhance architectural and provide clean modern Appearance

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LED recommended be less than 2 SDCM to achieve similar effect

Wall washer is a luminaire used for wallwashing, it has to be tested

by visual mock up or by using photometric in lighting software to
ensure uniform wallwashing.
It would be very good to consider LED with SDCM<2 since
wallwashing with visible difference in color would not be good for
the appearance.

For spacing and offset you should check manufacture recommendation. however the role of thumb
is The offset of a wallwasher is 1/3 of the wall height
The spacing of luminaire is equal to offset.
For 3 meter height the offset = 1 meter and spacing =1 meter.
The corner wallwasher should have equal offset from both wall to avoid strong lighting on the other
side wall.

VIG-7 Wallwasher offset is correct for the facing

Beam Wallwash wall but for the side wall which make
Offset 1000 mm unpleasant high contrast.
Spacing 1000 mm Offset ideally form both wall, using computer
Luminaire ERCO 84172 software help avoiding such high contrast.

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

Accent lighting for abject on wall

Accent lighting is a very important and could be very attractive if done properly. It highlights an
object and makes it an eye catcher ,
But many people fail to make it right because not having the right offset for a spotlight to highlight
a painting on wall.
Close offset is common mistake which makes too strong lighting above the painting which makes it
difficult to see the painting details instead of highlighting the painting

Close offset is common

mistake

Proper offset makes the

painting looks
Attractive.

To achieve a good accent light on painting, the spotlight has to have an offset from wall so that the
center of the light is tilted by 30o to the center of the painting.
The following charts shows the proper offset from center of spotlight to wall for different ceiling
hight.

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For 3 meter ceiling height, the offset of spotlight

is 850 mm from wall.

The beam angel of spotlight should be selected so that the beam light cover the painting , beam of light
shouldn’t be too small or too big for the painting size

The closest beam angle to the painting size should be selected

The VAG (Vertical Accent Guide), in the following guides for accent lighting, you can see different beam
and different sizes of paintings for a ceiling height of 3 meter

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 LdG-2 Lighting design Guide for Vertical Surfaces Ezzat Baroudi

VAG-1 VAG-1

Beam Narrow Spot 5o Beam Spot 15o

Offset 850 mm Offset 850 mm
0
Tilt of spotlight 30 Tilt of spotlight 300
Object Size 500mm x300mm Object Size 800mm x500mm

VAG-3 VAG-4
o
Beam flood 28 Beam Wide flood 50o
Offset 850 mm Offset 850 mm
Tilt of spotlight 300 Tilt of spotlight 300
Object Size 1200mm x700mm Object Size 1800mm x1200mm

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VAG-5 VAG-6
Beam Oval flood 15ox60o Beam Oval flood 15ox60o
Offset 850 mm Offset 850 mm
0
Tilt of spotlight 30 Tilt of spotlight 300
Object Size 2000 mm x600 mm Object Size 800 mm x2000 mm
The narrow side facing the wall The wide side facing the wall

VAG-5 and VAG-6 is using the same beam angle which is oval flood 15ox60o , however in VAG-5
the narrow side was facing the wall while in VAG-6 the wide side was facing the wall .

VAG-6 could be used form more than one paintings

with the same dimension, like in the example it was
used for three painting please in a row of around 2
meter

Lumen and Center beam of Spotlights

In order to make the painting attractive it should have more light by at least 5 times than the
surrounding, this could be achieved by selecting the proper lumen of spotlight and also the center
beam intensity of spotlight, using computer software ensure proper selecting of spotlight bean angle
and intensity to make the object as an eye catcher.

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Using computer software like

DIALux evo help ensuing the
proper selection of lumen and
center beam of spotlights.

You can see the other lighting guides on the following link
https://ezzatbaroudi.wordpress.com/

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