Lighting Installation Platform for Virtual Fixture Evaluation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current lighting design workflows are inefficient due to market fragmentation, lack of accurate product information, and underutilization of intelligent lighting features, leading to suboptimal lighting installations and missed opportunities for enhancing emotional and aesthetic experiences.
Innovation Solution
A platform that integrates automated search engines, near-field illumination characterization, and machine learning to facilitate the design, acquisition, installation, and operation of lighting installations, utilizing intelligent lighting fixtures and providing tools for custom tuning and emotional filtering.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If designers use physical samples to evaluate lighting fixtures, then they can directly observe lighting effects, but the process takes days or weeks and produces suboptimal results
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates digital copies (virtual models) of physical lighting fixtures that replicate their optical, electrical, and physical properties. These digital twins enable designers to evaluate lighting effects computationally without needing physical samples, dramatically reducing evaluation time while maintaining accuracy through simulated photometric data and rendering engines.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical process of physically transporting and installing lighting samples with a computational system. The design evaluation transitions from a physical mechanical process (moving fixtures, installing them, observing effects) to a digital computational process (loading virtual models, configuring parameters, rendering results), eliminating time losses associated with physical sample handling.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the lighting market remains fragmented with thousands of fixtures from many suppliers, then product variety is high, but information about lighting products is unavailable, limited, or inaccurate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal data structure and platform that can accommodate diverse lighting fixtures from multiple suppliers while standardizing information representation. The system uses a common framework (IES files, digital twins) that works across different fixture types and manufacturers, enabling both product variety and consistent information availability through a unified interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms unstructured or incomplete product information into structured, standardized parameters within a unified data model. By converting various information formats into consistent digital twin representations with standardized photometric, electrical, and physical properties, the system makes product information reliably available while preserving the ability to represent diverse fixture characteristics.
3Adaptability or versatility
If lighting fixtures are made intelligent with IoT connectivity, then they can be controlled remotely and communicate with other devices, but most lighting installations do little to take advantage of this increased intelligence
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary configuration and simulation of intelligent lighting behaviors during the design phase. Designers can pre-program scenes, schedules, and control logic in the virtual environment, allowing intelligent features to be fully utilized from installation without requiring complex post-installation configuration. The system prepares control strategies in advance that leverage IoT capabilities effectively.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a design and control platform as an intermediary between the intelligent fixtures and end users. This platform provides tools to configure, simulate, and optimize the use of intelligent features, making them easier to utilize by translating complex IoT capabilities into user-friendly controls and pre-configured scenarios that automatically leverage the fixtures' intelligence.
4Measurement precision
If designers travel to sample closets to characterize lighting fixtures, then they can evaluate products in person, but comparisons between products are unscientific and designers are unaware of better-suited products
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms subjective, unscientific product comparisons into objective, parameter-based evaluations. By representing all lighting fixtures as digital twins with standardized photometric, electrical, and physical parameters, the system enables scientific comparison through quantitative metrics rather than subjective visual assessment, improving measurement precision while simplifying the evaluation process.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates comprehensive digital copies of lighting fixtures that include all relevant technical specifications and performance characteristics. These digital twins provide complete product information accessible remotely, eliminating the need for physical sample closet visits while enabling more thorough and scientific product characterization through access to complete technical data.
Data Source
AI summary
A platform for design of a lighting installation generally includes an automated search engine for retrieving and storing a plurality of lighting objects in a lighting object library and a lighting design environment providing a visual representation of a lighting space containing lighting space objects and lighting objects. The visual representation is based on properties of the lighting space objects and lighting objects obtained from the lighting object library. A plurality of aesthetic filters is configured to permit a designer in a design environment to adjust parameters of the plurality of lighting objects handled in the design environment to provide a desired collective lighting effect using the plurality of lighting objects.