Blender is an incredibly powerful open-source (and thereby totally free!) modelling, animation and rendering program. But for all that power, it has a rather steep learning curve. Fortunately, it has a massive community of folks churning out fantastic tutorials and … Continue reading lighting for beginners – via Blender
Here’s an interesting video that discusses the present-day (2021) reality of VR headsets. I find the concept of “pixel density per degree field of view” fascinating. You might want to skip to about 3:00 for the good stuff. The key … Continue reading why do VR games look bad? how to achieve VR in real life?
Actively designing the experience of time is the next great opportunity for architects, lighting designers and other design professions focused on the built environment. The PBS Youtube series “It’s Okay to Be Smart” has a fantastic primer on how the … Continue reading the perception of time in architecture
The U.S. Department of Energy’s SSL team has just launched a new L-Prize competition as a follow-up to the original LED lighting L-Prize competition from over a decade ago! With a total prize pool of $12.2m and a far more … Continue reading a new L-Prize!
Wow! I missed a big anniversary. Oops! Back in July, Lucept turned 10 years old! A fun little hobby blog looking at the incredibly specific and nerdy topic of “future trends in architectural lighting” has nevertheless accumulated 903 posts, 128,356 … Continue reading lucept is 10 years old!
Caspar is a startup focusing on learning/artificial intelligence systems for residential smarthome applications, especially for multi-unit residential developments. I definitely believe that lighting and other building systems need to become more automated, and the concept of a learning/auto-adjusting system fits … Continue reading caspar
Commonplace Studio is an Amsterdam-based design studio consisting of designer Jon Stam and hard- and software engineer Simon de Bakker. Stam and de Bakker are creating some very interesting concepts that integrate micro digital projectors into ceiling- and wall-luminaires to … Continue reading commonplace studio
Ledmotive is a Barcelona-based manufacturer of high-color fidelity LED lighting engines and control solutions. Ledmotive offers either 7 or 10 channels of light integrated into their light engines. Plus they complete the system with a nicely conceived spectrometer accessory for … Continue reading ledmotive
Any hard-core electrical engineers specialized in LED drivers reading this blog? If so, I would appreciate your input!!!! Until today, we were proudly a 100% LED-illuminated household. Unfortunately, I faced an enemy I could not slay: Two G4/12VAC lamps in … Continue reading defeated by G4 lamps, I retreat from 100% LED
Since I wrote about them nearly 6-years ago, it is nice to see Massachusetts-based JLC-Tech has made good progress in their projects and product lines. As I wrote previously, there is lots of potential for integrating lines of light into … Continue reading t-bar LED lighting – update
I ponied up the money to WordPress to eliminate the ads from my site. I had always used the “free” version of WordPress. But of course nothing in life is free so apologies to my readers – I didn’t realize how obnoxious the ads were until I moved to a new computer and saw lucept from the point of view of a normal reader – not via the WordPress authoring tool. I never made any money from those ads and do not endorse any of that content! Continue reading no more ads on lucept
Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you and yours have a great New Years! And of course, another iconic holiday lighting image. Personally, I think we should name Clark Griswold an honory IALD member. I mean, he’s delivering at least 1fc at … Continue reading happy holidays 2017!
Here are the current choices: Cheap sheetrock pockmarked with lights, fire protection, HVAC, security, etc Cheaper ACT with the same Exposed structural ceilings, with the same, but letting it all “hang out” Someone who “designed it”, meaning they just painted it out all black Does anyone, anywhere have budget to innovate something different? Continue reading retail ceilings desperately need to be rethought
Modern social media seems to be turbo-charging a constant stream of fake news, bogus claims and empty promises. Even the rather boring lighting industry can’t escape the nonsense. So for the end of year, a bit of lighting industry insider … Continue reading 7 scandalous lighting headlines for a “post-truth” world
“….we can add one of those fancy ‘smart bulbs’ so we can control it with an app, dear!” Happy Holidays everyone! Continue reading happy holidays from lucept
Dear readers – help advance the future of lighting design! My Luminous Patterns team wants to win the “Best of Year” awards from Interior Design magazine! Please help our small team and click here to vote for us! If you’re … Continue reading VOTE! …for Luminous Patterns!!!!!
Naked Approach is a Finnish research consortium that is focused on exploring a “Nordic perspective to gadget‐free hyperconnected environments.” To quote their site: In our vision, the digital surroundings will form an “omnipotential” environment around the user, providing all the … Continue reading naked approach
Last week I had a few free hours to explore Berlin and Versace’s new store in the Kurfürstendamm high-street area really caught my eye. They make use of decorative surface-mount track lighting that becomes a very brand-appropriate addition to the architecture, while … Continue reading versace store berlin
For any of you making LED “maker” projects, a nice calculator for figuring out the resistance you need for simple series or parallel LED circuits can be found at ledcalc.com. It just helped me build a simple alarm circuit for my 8 year old… Continue reading LED resistor calculator
A great article just appeared in the New Yorker comparing the history of light bulbs and the challenge of switching from an industry structure around planned obsolescence to an industry built around durable products — effectively circular economy strategies. Some notable sections … Continue reading planned obsolescence vs. LED lighting
