Sticky: HYVE Innovation Community in collaboration with OSRAM, are hosting an online idea and design competition

First off, let me say that I am NOT posting this late. I did not get this until 25MAY09 but the contest runs until the end of July so you still have time. I am posting the email sent to me by HYVE regarding this really cool contest. I am considering entering and I hope all of you lighting designers out there do too. Come on! Strut your stuff – you might win something. If any of you do, please post back here or send me an email with images and an explanation (short) of your design – I would LOVE to post them here! Here is the email explaining the contest:

We, the HYVE Innovation Community in collaboration with OSRAM, are going
to host an online idea and design competition in the beginning of May
until the end of July. The contest “LED – Emotionalize your light”
(www.LED-emotionalize.com) asks international light and design lovers to
share their ideas in the field of light designs using LED technology and
to create innovative and emotional mood light concepts. Moreover the
contest aims to generate feasible ideas for light solutions, which are on
the one hand easy to use and implement and on the other hand affordable
for everyone.

With the help of an easy to use submission procedure ideas can be
contributed, described with simple application scenarios and extended by
designs or technical solutions. Participants will not only have the
possibility to create their own Light design, but also to have it
discussed within the community. The community members can comment the
ideas of other participants as well as to evaluate or refine them.

The competition has already started and will run until the end of July
2009. Within the first phase new ideas and designs are collected and
discussed by the community. In the following second phase the best designs
and ideas are presented and jointly advanced by the community.

All participants of the competition have the chance to win valuable prizes
amounting to 7000€. The designs will be judged by a professional jury,
consisting of senior staff of OSRAM and selected professional
representatives. The selection considers community and expert evaluations
and will be based on creativity, innovation and emotionality of the
submitted ideas. Furthermore the most active community members in each
phase can receive valuable non-cash prizes.

The “LED – Emotionalize your light” Idea contest is supported by the
light producer OSRAM and the Siemens AG

The following link will guide you directly to the competition:
www.LED-emotionalize.com

Really cool designs have been submitted up to now. For example Luminous
speaker, which can change their colour according to the music or luminous
chairs which might change their colour if it’s happy hour.

So check out the competition and if you find this competition exciting and
interesting, we would appreciate it if you could report on our contest in
your blog.

Thank you for your support.
So there you have it – get going already – I want to see what you guys and gals come up with. I’ll try to enter and post what I come up with too. 

Technorati Tags: lighting design , lighting designers , lighting design software , lighting engineering , Office Lighting , office lighting design , designing with light , lighting contest , lighting design contest , osram , hyve , lighting innovations , led emotion , led emotionalize , competition , led competition , lighting design competition

Dialux Videos

Using the website Truveo, I have found several Dialux-related videos from across the web.  I cannot watch many types of online videos from work so I cant tell you what they entail or what their quality is but it’s worth a look. Maybe one of my readers could comment back and let me know whats up with these? They didn’t look like tutorial videos (growns from the readers) but rather showcases of specific projects but I didn’t look at them all and again, I can’t view the videos themselves. Even if they are just showcase videos, it’s still cool to see Dialux in action!

Click here to checkout Dialux videos via Truveo

Smart LED Parking Lot Lights

UC Davis parking garage. Photo courtesy of Cree.

Ruud Lighting/BetaLED along with the University of California at Davis have developed “smart” LED parking lot lights that reduce the energy consumption by 80% over the more traditional metal-halide lamps they replaced. The 50 LED light fixtures implement a two-level activity sensing system that dims the lights to half power when no motion is detected and then bring them back up to full power when motion is sensed. Along with conserving energy, drivers, pedestrians, lot attendents, and security personnel will now have visual ques to the presence of other drivers/pedestrians in the area. After two years of development and testing, the fixtures were installed in the UC Davis South Entry Parking Structure. The smart lighting system technology is being destributed via Cree’s LED University program. Very cool indeed!

Click here to read the full article from LED News

Technorati Tags: architectural lighting, parking lot lighting, parking lights, led parking lot lights, UC Davis, University of California, California Lighting Technology Center, Smart LED lighting, Smart lights

Submit your craziest, goofiest, or kookiest light fixture design pics

Here’s an idea. I am really interested to see what any of the light fixture designers of the world have come up with for really far out light fixtures, maybe while they were in design school or something. Don’t worry, I’m not going to swipe the designs or anything – indeed the weirder the better so these aren’t likely to be active designs with patents or anything. I’m sure you have come up with some kooky designs so lets see them! Please comment with links to pictures you have up on the web already or email them to me by clicking here (gif, png, jpg) Don’t be shy!

Maybe once we have a bunch, I’ll host a poll to get your opinion on which is the kookiest or most likely to make a real product (maybe with a prize or something…shhh).

Technorati Tags: light fixture, lighting design, lighting design contest, light fixture picture, crazy light design, kooky light design, goofy light design, creative light design

Announcing the Sketchup Graphics Blog!

I would like to inform all my readers that I have a new blog, the Sketchup Graphics Blog, that is about all things Sketchup. I have taken the Sketchup related posts from here and copied them over to the new blog. Sketchupgraphics.com will feature the latest news about Google Skethcup, Sketchup plugins, Sketchup tutorials, and more. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

DIALux now has an official support board

Mr. Willi Bremecker, the Team Leader for Sales at DIAL – makers of DIALux – has informed me that there is now an official DIALux forum on their website! Hooorayy!!!! While I don’t want to chase traffic away from my blog, as a community leader and a believer in community support, I wholeheartedly recommend everyone register on the forum and contribute your knowledge there, as well as here, in an effort to make DIALux as good as it can be or better. Free programs like this need a chain of quality support sites to help the product develop and grow and to assist the community at large with using a program we all know and love. Kudos to DIAL for taking the next step and I hope to see some first class community support at the forum (but don’t stop contributing here either ) LOL

Technorati Tags: architectural design, architectural led lighting, architectural lighting, architectural lighting design, Architectural Lighting Industry, artistic lighting, designing with light, dial, DIALux, free lighting software, free software, led architectural lighting, lighting artist, lighting calculation, lighting design, lighting design software, lighting designers, lighting engineering, lighting software, Office Lighting, office lighting design, Solid-State Architectural Lighting, solid-state lighting design, solid-state office lighting

Architectural Lighting Blog wins award…sort of…

I got tired of not having awards so I did what I think ALL blog writers SHOULD do….give themselves an award. So I came up with the Self-Awarded Blog Award for 2008 and gave it to the Architectural Lighting Blog. It was a tough choice….it came down to several good finalists but in the end, my desire for shameless self promotion overtook the other competitors leaving the Architectural Lighting Blog with the crown! LOL

So here it is….the winner of the 2008 Self-Awarded Blog Awards…..the Architectural Lighting Blog! Boy am I getting punchy or what?

FREE Commercial Building Lighting Web Tool

The Department of Energy (DOE) has developed an interactive web tool called Commercial Lighting Solutions (CLS) intended to provide “how to” advice about ways to improve interior lighting efficiency and reduce energy consumption for a potential savings of 30% or more in commercial buildings.

The design guidance provided by the web tool will be available free of charge! How cool is that?

The web tool that provides energy savings projections to users based on their choices.

CLS gathers information from users on building type and space description, then allows the user to select their preferred lighting solution, which include performance specifications for lighting equipment and controls, design layouts, and supporting documentation. Also included is detailed technical information aimed at architects and engineers.

CLS will also link users to participating utilities, where applicable, to access rebates and incentives.

A project of the Building Technologies Program at the DOE, the CLS team is currently gathering feedback while the CLS tool is in beta and making changes based on the feedback they are getting from it’s users.

Commercial Lighting Solutions have currently been developed and analyzed for five macro-types of retail stores with more on the way:

• Big box
• Small box
• Grocery
• Specialty market
• Pharmacy

Designed to meet or exceed the savings levels to qualify for Energy Policy Act tax incentives, the solutions are being developed in conjunction with an update to the Advanced Lighting Guidelines.

When it is ready, users of the Commercial Lighting Solutions web site often will have a choice of several design vignettes and lighting control strategies that suit parameters they input for their project.

A solution can be implemented as shown, or it an be used as a starting point for a design that is refined to serve particular corporate branding, architectural or business objectives.

Modeled results for each solution included on the web site must show decreased energy consumption of 30% or greater below a baseline design. Some of the solutions have achieved modeled savings of 50% or more!

Click here to check out the FREE Commercial Lighting Solutions Beta Tool

Originally reported on lighting.com

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Another New DIALux Plugin

Hess has introduced a large DIALux plugin with over 2200 luminaires and variations! Kewl They have mimicked their website’s navigation in the plugin’s user interface which should make for easy browsing.

Click here to shoot off to their website to pickup the plugin.

Let me know how it goes!

Technorati Tags: architectural lighting, architectural lighting design, solid-state architectural lighting, led architectural lighting, architectural led lighting, lighting design, solid-state lighting design, lighting designers, lighting artist, artistic lighting, lighting engineering, architectural lighting industry, designing with light, architectural design, office lighting, daylight planning, daylight planner, daylight consultant, daylight consulting, building daylight, natural building light, dialux, lighting software, free software, free lighting software, free lighting design software, lighting plugin, plugins, dialux blog, dialuxblog.com

Some more Sketchup & Kerkythea Images

Here are some examples of the power of Sketchup Pro and Kerkythea. Here I have some harware: screws, nuts, wing bolts, etc… that I modeled completely in Sketchup Pro from scratch. The first image in the group shows them rendered in Sketchup Pro. The remaining images were all rendered in Kerkythea using my own custom-created HDRI images for lighting and some basic textures applied. I think the results are stunning. Let me know what you think.

P.s. I have some 3D models I made for sale on my website (these hardware pieces I’ll be giving away for FREE soon). Click here to check them out.

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