Full Article:

Even though interactive (Offermans et.al., 2013), adaptive (Viani et.al., 2017), and self-optimizable (Sun et.al., 2020) lighting systems are becoming readily available, designing system automations, and evaluating their impact on user experience significantly challenges designers. In this paper we demonstrate the use of a gaming engine as a platform for designing, simulating, and evaluating autonomous smart lighting behaviors. We establish the Human - Lighting System Interaction Framework, a computational framework for developing a Light Sculpting Engine and for designing occupant-system interactions. Our results include a. a method for combining in real-time lighting IES profiles into a single ‘combined’ profile - b. algorithms that optimize in real-time, lighting configurations - c. direct glare elimination algorithms, and d. system energy use optimization algorithms. Overall, the evolution from designing static building components to designing interactive systems necessitates the reconsideration of methods and tools that allow user experience and system performance to be tuned by design.