HOW TO ANALYZE A LUMINAIRE DESIGN IN AGI32
At this point in AE 311 you have just been assigned the first project: to design the luminaire
layouts for six spaces in a building currently under construction. A requirement of the
project is to analyze your design of each space with AGI32 – lighting analysis software. This
instruction set is a crash course in AGI32 that will afford you the basic understanding of the
program necessary to fulfill the requirements of the project. This program is similar in
layout to AutoCAD so you will already have a basic intuition of how to use the program. You
can use this instruction set as a jumping off point to gain practice with the program and
“learn by doing”.
Open AGI32 by clicking START > LIGHTING
ANALYSTS > AGI32
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Once the program opens you can build
the room to be analyzed by clicking on
ADD > ROOM > RECTANGULAR > FLAT
In the Room pop-up menu, enter the height of the
walls in the wall height box. To set the reflectance of
your room surfaces, click the color box next to the
surface reflectance to be changed. A
Color/Reflectance Selector window will open to
permit you to change both the color and reflectance.
Close this window when this is done.
When you close the Room window you will be
prompted to enter the room dimensions. Type “0,0,0” for the first point
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and press enter, type “X,0,0” for the second point and press enter (where X is
the x-dimension of the room), and “X,Y,0” for the third point and press enter (where Y is the
y-dimension of the room). A rectangular room will now appear on the screen.
5 Before you can place luminaires in the room you must select the luminaire
you wish to use in
your design. Click ADD >
LUMINAIRE > DEFINE to open the
Define Luminaire window.
Choose your
desired
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luminaire from the list of luminaires. If for some reason the luminaire you
want to use isn’t on this list, you can click Select to browse to the .IES file for your luminaire
and click Open to add it to this list.
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Once you have your luminaire in this list select it. The data for this luminaire will be shown
below. Enter the correct lamp lumens for your design and the appropriate Light Loss
Factors (LLF’s) for this luminaire based on your design criteria. Then click Add/Redefine
and then Close.
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Now you are ready to place the
luminaires in the room. Click ADD > LUMINARE
> LOCATION to position a luminaire in the room
you created.
9 A luminaire will appear with your mouse and you simply click where you
want the luminaire to go to place it. Press escape after you are done placing
luminaires to exit the add mode.
Next, you need
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to add a calculation
grid. Click ADD >
CALCULATIONS > GRID > 2 PT.
INPUT to bring up the
Calculation Points – 2 Pt. Grid
window.
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Change the point spacing to an appropriate distance for the size of your room. For most
rooms, a spacing of 3 feet in each direction is appropriate. Also, change the Z coordinate
points to your desired work plane height (2.5 feet is the normal work plane height). Click
OK.
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When you close this window you will
be prompted to select the size of the
calculation grid. Click the top left
corner of the room and then click the
bottom right corner to specify the grid
size (do not hold down the mouse
button as you move between the
corners). Your calculation points will
now show up on your room. It should
look like the image to the left. The
question marks appear because no
calculations have been computed yet.
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When you calculate your illuminance
values you will want contour lines to
better show illuminance regions. To add
these click ADD > CALCULATIONS >
ISOLINES to open the Isoline Values
window.
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In the Isoline Values window, choose appropriate values that you would like each colored
isoline to represent. Generally, you will want a few values above and a few values below
your target illuminance. For the
example to the left, the target
illuminance value was 30
footcandles (which will show up
bright green on our analysis) and
there are contours above and
below the target illuminance.
YOU MUST ALSO CHECK THE
ISOLINES FOR ILLUMINANCE
VALUES BOX OR THE ISOLINES
WILL NOT SHOW UP.
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Click OK to close that window. You are now ready to run the calculations. You
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can do this by clicking the Calculate button on the main toolbar.
It will take a few seconds for the program to run the calculations, but when it finishes you
will see illuminane values and contours for the room. This is where you will analyze your
design. You want values throughout the space that are relatively close to your target
illuminance and you want to avoid hot and cold spots in the design (see the images below
for examples of poor and good designs).
An
example of a poor design, with a hot spot in the middle and cold spots in the corners.
An example of a better design with more even illuminance levels throughout the space.