Southwest Environmental Limited

Lux Contour Plans

If you need a Lux Contour plan to supplement a report, or as part of a lighting assessment, then we can help with that. Please email plans over to us using above yellow button and we will get back to you with a quote.

A Lux contour plan shows the intensity of light delivered on a surface, by showing a series of contours usually overlain on to a site layout plan.

What is Lux?

Latin root word for light, Lux is a measure of light intensity it's generally spoken of in situations where it is useful to know the intensity of light which has been delivered to a surface for example when you need a certain amount of light to accomplish a task or need to know if there is too much light being spilt onto a surface where it will cause light pollution.

Another commonly used value is lumens. If you see a torch bought off of Amazon or eBay you will normally find that it has got a very high number of lumens on it say one thousand lumens. Lumens aren't directly correlated to Lux because in order to deliver the lumens to a surface you need to focus the light beam and this is typically done with a concave mirror placed behind the emitter.

So for example a torch with an adjustable beam may have a power of 200 lumens however by adjusting the beam from the floodlight setting to the spotlight setting you can increase or decrease the light intensity or the lux reading you will get upon the surface where the light beams are landing.

Lux Contour Model?

In order to work out the lighting intensity within a given space we have to put a load or variables into a computer model.

First of all we start off with the space itself this might be an indoor space such as the building, which we have to build as a 3D model within the modeling software.

Then we might add in various calculation surfaces which are 2D planes within the model which are used to capture the light which is emitted by the fittings and report on their intensity at the point of intercept, with the calculation surface.

Another thing which we then have to add in is obviously the lights themselves and there are absolutely thousands of lights to choose from from hundreds of manufacturers. It's important to do lighting models before you fit your lights, if you fit lights which don't have modeling files associated with them then you may not be able to model them. . . . and if you can't model them then you can't get your planning permission . . .  and if you can't get your planning permission then you want to allowed to keep your lights that you've just bought.

What does Lux Contour Plan Look Like?

It looks like this:

Why have I been Asked for a Lux Contour Plan?

You probably need a lighting assessment, if you have already had a lighting assessment done, then perhaps you can get us to provide a separate plan that compliment the report.

Need a Lux Contour Plan, hit big yellow button at top of page.