Optimize your Light is possible…..
Optimize your Light – Software Freeware English Version
Introduction
Save the Sky, in spite of its name, is a light design software aimed to beginner and experts alike. Its purpose is to optimize the design of road lighting. It can, in the respect of security technical norm and rules:
– Optimize the interdistance (distance between poles/pole height) of fixtures;
– Minimize the installed power per street length,
– Minimize the minimum maintained luminance;
– choose the better fixtures and make the most of them;
– Last but not least lower the direct and indirect light flux aimed at the sky (as requested by the most effective laws against light pollution like that of the Italian region Lombardy).
Achieving these goals allow us to light roads respecting the night sky and its cultural heritage of incalculable value for us and future generations.
Usually in other light design software, the designer chooses the street and installation parameters, then he compares if the processed results meets the technical rules. The design is done.
This software, chosen the street dimensions and the values imposed by the rules, optimize the calculus variables (like pole heigh, distance, tilt and so on) in order to produce the best configuration needed.
More important characteristics and raccomandations
This software take into account the Italian norm UNI 10439, revision July 2001, on motorized traffic roads and follow the prescription of CIE 30.
Every software uses slightly different algorithms due to technical reason (referencing to CEI 140-144 o other technical rules) or due to different interpretation (a big fraction of the commercial softwares seems to have different interpretation of the technical rules and some of them commit mistakes).
Testing Save the Sky, we compared the results given by some of the best lighting softwares and we found only slight differences between the programs (around 2 or 3 % on luminance, sometimes higher on uniformity, probably due to position of the chosen observer).
The reference softwares used in the testing of Save the Sky are: Relux 3.0, ewoEXCALC 1.01.03 e LiteStar 4.1 e 5.0
IMPORTANT:
Save the Sky is NOT a lighting design software. It gives the best parameters to have a better design using one of the numerous commercial softwares dedicated to the design. Save the Sky does not substitute other sofwares, but complete them, giving the best parameter to obtain optimized lighting installations.
