State-of-the-Art Techniques in Lighting Simulation

Daylight admitted through building fenestration enhances the visual comfort level of occupants owing to the full spectrum and continuously varying nature in intensity and spectral composition. A building designed with proper daylighting features usually demonstrates low energy consumptions for electric lighting and cooling. Since daylight factor concept was first introduced in 1960s in the UK, many researchers has developed simplified or full-fledged daylighting design and analysis tools which can be used during the early stages of design process. Recently, owing to the powerful computer hardware capacity many lighting related computer programs have been developed to enable hour-by-hour simulations based on weather data. The purpose of this paper is to review state-of-the-art techniques and computer models for daylighting design and analysis and introduce current and future trend in daylighting simulation profession