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The lighting group at IREC has published in the osa journal Optics Express a method and a new index for graphically evaluating the color quality of light sources

CRM

In recent years, lighting or illumination has experienced a profound transformation. With the development and commercial explosion of solid-state lighting (SSL), the options for the lighting designer have increased considerably. These new technologies provide digital control of lighting, and the ability to create different radiation spectra optimized for a particular application.

In this new technological context, the indicators commonly used in the past to assess the quality of white light sources are now obsolete and ceased to be reliable for analyzing LED light sources, which are composed of semiconductor components that emit a narrow-band spectrum.

The Lighting Group at IREC, recently published a study which proposes a new methodology and graphical index to evaluate sources of light, the Color Rendering Map or CRM, whose strength resides in considering the intended application of the light source, so that a detailed spectral optimization can be performed.

This study highlights the need to move towards a lighting design that not only takes into account the geometric space to calculate the luminance and illuminance distributions, but also those colorimetric properties related to the spectral absorption of the space under consideration, so that light sources can be designed to satisfy the spectral needs of spaces as diverse as museums, markets, or operating rooms in hospitals.

The article "The Color Rendering Map: A graphical metric for assessment of illumination" was recently published in the journal Optics Express, from the Optical Society of America (OSA), a journal located on the top of impact according to the ISI-Web of Knowledge in the field of Optics and Applied Physics. For more information, download the article for free here.