DIALux evo 7.1: Simplified calculation without furniture safes time

The lighting design department of a luminaire manufacturer requested DIAL’s help in dealing with a frequent design situation. Often rooms in DIALux are designed with furniture to provide the customer with the best possible visual impression of the area planned.

However, in the past the calculation time with furniture was very time-intensive – this has changed with the update to DIALux evo 7.1.

The luminaire manufacturer was responsible for designing the lighting in a hairdressing salon and designed the room with 3D models of the furniture and fittings. It became clear that the calculation took a very long time as soon as so-called »Styling Chairs« were used in the project. These items of furniture were very complex and had very many surface areas.

The DIALux development team has analysed and solved the problem. After the update of DIALux evo (7.1) it is now possible to calculate projects without furniture and objects. On the one hand, this saves an enormous amount of time, and on the other hand, furniture to some extent tends to have a negative influence on the uniformity of the user plane. This is why, for normative evaluation, it is beneficial to be able to simply hide/blank out the furniture. DIALux filters out the objects in the calculation, but they are still in the scene and are shaded dark on the screen.

As well as hiding furniture and objects it is now easy to calculate these, too. The furniture is not completely illuminated but realistic shadows are cast. With this function the user can also save a lot of calculation time. In the example described above the calculation time is reduced from several minutes to several seconds.