Zseller, Viktor

2007-2011: Ph.D. at Budapest University of Technology and Economist
2011-2015: GE Lighting
2015-Present: Arrow Electronics

Challenges and First Practical Experiences of Roadway Lighting Design in Virtual Reality

In roadway lighting applications where motorized traffic is involved, the installed luminaires must maintain sufficient and uniform luminance of the roadway surface perceived by the drivers of vehicles while also controlling glare in order to ensure clear visibility and detectability of obstacles on the tarmac outside the safe stopping distance. While the most recent revisions of the governing ‘lighting design standard’ usually applied by European roadway lighting installations is issued as EN 13201-, published in 2016 – are prepared for the technological advancements of highly directional LED based luminaires, the technical background of the recommended calculations are based on methods developed for a past era of computational calculations.

The purpose of this paper is to give a summary of the challenges faced by developing a full-scale virtual reality environment for a visual design verification of roadway lighting installations. Such systems are to be prepared for an extensive real time modeling of human vision during nighttime adaptation besides applying advanced shader algorithms for a photorealistic and perception realistic rendering of tarmac reflections, environmental conditions and volume scattering effects. The rendered image presented to the user is calibrated to high-resolution luminance measurements including colorimetry.

During the development of the introduced software and hardware environment, an intensive implementation of features based on feedback provided by industry experts and a civil control group was taken care of. The findings of the surveys are leading to the proposal of an alternative lighting design calculation method implementing the contrast perception capability of an arbitrary observer for defined trial obstructions with given extents, positioning and reflection characteristics – mimicking common root causes of accidents.