Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Are your lights in Revit MEP turned on...the right way?

As usual, sometimes we do something thinking it's right, then you find out it's not. For example - my suspended fluorescent lights have a variety of types built in based on the shape and size...and we created the light source definition to have a specific rectangular shape with a hemispherical light distribution (and it's linked to the size of the light, so when the size changes, the light source changes):

Unfortunately, only the photometric web shape allows you to assign the IES data file to the light, so if you're planning on doing a more detailed light analysis, you need to change the light distribution to a photometric web:


Once it's changed, you can choose the source IES data file to use (in our case, we make sure it's using an associated parameter, so the user can edit it without editing the family):


Now that you've set your lights up this way, you can start to take advantage of a cool new program from the makers of AGI32 - Elumtools... http://www.elumtools.com/...  but more on this later...

Light it up! And Happy New Year!

- David B.