ILLUMINATION

• One of the most important communication

channel of man with the environment is
vision.
• It is possible only with the help of light.
• Light is a prerequisite of vision.
• Light is a purely a human sensation like
sound, taste, smell and warmth.
• Something is necessary to stimulate the
sense and in this case it is
electromagnetic radiation with wavelength
380-780nm falling on the retina of the eye.
 LIGHT

Light is defined as that portion of

electromagnetic spectrum to which our
eyes are sensitive.
• The complete range of radiation is referred
to as electromagnetic spectrum ,extending
from low energy , long wavelength radio
waves to high energy, short wavelength
gamma rays.
• The solar spectrum at the earth’s surface
consists of about 47% visible, 48%
shortwave infrared and about 5%
ultraviolet.
 Nature of light
• In a homogeneous medium light travels
along a straight path.

• It’s velocity is about 3x108 m/s (300,000

km/s).
• Light with shorter wavelength and higher
frequencies have more energy than those
with longer wavelength and lower
frequencies.
• Red light has long wave length and Blue
light has shorter wave length.
• The wave length determines its color.
Light containing all visible waves is
perceived as white.
– Red light (6.2-7.7 nm)
– Orange (5.9 – 6.2 nm)
– Yellow (5.7 -5.9 nm)
– Green (4.9-5.7 nm)
– Blue (4.5 -4.9 nm)
– Violet (3.9-4.5 nm)
• Light is transparent in gas and vacuum,
but opaque in solid.
 Purpose of light
• Practical – to facilitate the performance of
a visual task and ensure visual comfort.
• Artistic – to create certain emotional
effects.
 Source of light
1. Natural light
a) Direct sun light
b) Diffuse light (sky light)
2. Artificial light
a) Incandescent light ( filament lamp0
b) Fluorescent light (tube light)
c) Special light
• Ultimate source of natural light is the sun, from
which we receive large amount of thermal
radiation with the light.
• In bright sunshine the illumination is 100 k lux
(100,000 lux)
• Overcast sky illumination – 10,000 lux.
• Full moon night – 0.1 lux.
• Stars – 0.2 lux.
• Natural light strongly depends on the location,
climate or even of building fabric. but artificial
light is under the designer’s control.
 Unit of measurement
• Light has its specific terms and units.
There are mainly four basic units:
1. Luminous flux (F)
2. Luminous intensity (I)
3. Illuminance (E)
4. Luminance (L)
 1. Luminous Flux
• Luminous flux is the quantity of the
energy of the light emitted by a source per
second in all directions.
• The unit of luminous flux is a lumen (lm).
• Lumen is used to define light output of
lamps.
• One lumen is a luminous flux of the
uniform point light source that has
luminous intensity of 1 candela and is
contained in one unit of spatial angle (or 1
steradian).
• The steradian is the spatial angle that
limits a surface area of the sphere equal to
the square of the radius.
•This concept is shown in the
figure for 1 m radius of the
sphere. Since the area of sphere
is 4pr², then the luminous flux of
the point light source is 4p
lumens.
•The unit “lumen” and” watt” have
the same dimension as they both
represent energy per second.
•Luminous efficiency of
incandescent lamp is 10-16 lm/
watt, where as luminous
efficiency of fluorescent lamp is
40-70 lm/ watt.
 2.Luminous Intensity

• It is used to define the “strength” of light

in specific direction.
• It is the quantity, which describes the
power of a source to emit light in a given
direction.
• It is measured in unit of Candela (Cd) in SI
system. Candle power in FP system.
• I = F/ω
where, ω solid angle, in steradian.
 3. Illuminance
• It is the level of illumination on a lighted
surface.
• It is the amount of luminous flux from a
light source falling on a given surface.
• The unit of illuminance is lm/m2, which is
also known as lux in SI system, foot
candle in foot pound system.
– 1 lm/sq ft = 1 foot candle = 10.78 lux.
E = F/A
Where,
E – illuminance of a
surface, lux
F – luminous flux
incident on the
surface, lumen.
A – area of the
surface, m2
 4. Luminance
i. Luminance of a light source (L)
– It is the brightness of the source.
– Luminance of a light source, in a given direction is
defined as the luminous intensity per unit projected
surface area of the light source in that direction.
– L = I/A
Where,
I- luminous intensity,cd.
A – projected area, m2
– The unit of a light source is cd/m2 in SI, foot –
lambert in FPS.
II. Luminance of an illuminated surface (B)
– It is the brightness of the illuminated
surface.
– B=rE
Where,
B- luminance of an illuminated surface.
r - reflectance factor of surface.
E – illuminance of surface.
 Surface Characteristics
• Light incident on an object can be distributed
in three ways: reflected, absorbed and
transmitted.
• Some important properties of the object and
its material are described by the proportions
of these three components:
I. Reflectance (r)
II. Absorbance (a)
III. Transmittance (t)
• In all cases: r +a +t =1
• In case of opaque object t = 0, then r +a =1
 I . Reflection
• Any surface, which is not perfectly black,
will reflect light.
• The amount it reflects and the way in
which it is reflected can be defined as the
reflection property of the surface.
• Even a sheet of clear glass reflects some
of the light incident on it .(80%).
• Types of reflection :
– Specular reflection
– Diffuse reflection
– Mixed reflection
• Specular reflection:
– If parallel rays of incident light remain parallel after
reflection from a surface, is called specular
reflection.i.e, plane silver backed mirror.
– Plane mirror may have a specular reflectance near to
0.95 (it reflects 95% of the light it receives).
– Snell’s laws of reflection apply to such surfaces: the
angle of incident is equal to the angle of incident.
– From a convex mirror the reflected rays will be
divergent and from a concave mirror they will be
convergent.
• Diffuse reflection:
– If the surface is rough or non shiny it will
reflect light in various ways.
– Light reflected from a matt surface will be
diffused.
• Mixed reflection:
– Most of surfaces
have mixed
reflection
properties i.e,
some specular
reflectance and
some diffuse
reflectance.
 II. Absorbance
• Some materials may absorb certain wave
lengths of the incident light, thus the
remainder reflected will show a color
effect.
• In mixing colored pigments the
absorption's are additive and reflections
will be subtractive.
 Examples;

color absorbs reflects

Yellow paint blue Red,yellow,gre

en
blue paint Red and Blue and green
yellow
A mixture of Blue, red Only green
two yellow
red All colors red
 Transmittance
• Some materials when exposed to the light
transmit a large part of light are called
transparent materials.
• Some other materials, which block the
passage of the light , are called opaque
materials. Behind an opaque object there
will be no light i.e, will cast shadow.
• The materials which transmit a part of the
incident light, but break its straight
passage, scatter it in all directions,
creating diffuse light is called translucent
materials.