Comparison of lighting simulation tools with focus on lighting quality

By the rise of concerns for global warming, reducing emissions via lowering energy consumption has become a necessity in every sector and the lighting sector is no exception. However, it should not come at the cost of lighting quality and user comfort which is a common practice in today’s lighting design and energy reduction initiatives. The “energy reduction” view should change toward “value driven optimization” in which energy reduction is balanced against lighting quality and user comfort for optimization of the total value of the building. As the use of IT technology grows in lighting design, constant reviews of the software tools are necessary in order to evaluate their performance and ability to design value driven lighting. The main objective of this paper is to compare different lighting simulation tools with respect to their ability to simulate lighting quality both artificial and daylight. The indicators for the comparison are defined based upon findings from another project “criteria for good lighting quality” that is currently being conducted at the same university. First, current numerical metrics for lighting quality are summarized. Then, different simulation tools are evaluated based on a literature study. The outcome of this research summarizes the strength and shortcomings of a number of simulation tools.