Date: 13/06/2012

Enhanced LightTools from Synopsys for lighting systems design and analysis

Synopsys, Inc has announced the availability of enhancements to its LightTools illumination design and analysis software. LightTools version 7.3 delivers new illumination design features in areas such as application-specific design, color quality analysis, LED phosphor modeling, and design management.

"When designing illumination systems, we work closely with mechanical engineers, moldmakers and other teams at every step of the design process," said Blair Unger, president of Blu Optics, LLC. "LightTools gives us the information-sharing capabilities we need to meet those process requirements, along with the design and optimization power that lets us speed up product development."

"We want to provide luminaire designers with new and better ways to turn their ideas into great designs and, ultimately, into products that give them a competitive advantage," said George Bayz, vice president and general manager of the optical solutions group at Synopsys. "With LightTools 7.3, we have delivered powerful tools to help them accomplish this, with software enhancements to more effectively jumpstart, analyze, optimize and manage illumination designs."

Street lighting utility: The application-specific design 'street lighting utility' of LightTools provides a specialized set of tools that guide users through the process of evaluating, designing and optimizing luminance and illuminance patterns on roadways to meet industry-standard specifications.
Capabilities:
1. Models complex luminaire designs directly in a roadway lighting configuration
2. Supports automatic design optimization to help ensure that the design meets industry standards, such as surround ratio and average luminance
3. Performs fast calculations of perceived light levels on a street for a series of fixtures
4. Calculates luminance data based on standard observer positions
5. Displays pass/fail criteria for the design based on industry standards
Color quality analysis metrics: LightTools now supports two additional metrics color quality scale (CQS) and gamut area index (GAI) for evaluating a light source's color rendering performance. These metrics are useful for measuring the color quality of LED sources, and they augment the Color Rendering Index (CRI) for evaluating a light source's saturation and contrast.

LED phosphor modeling enhancement: Enhanced processes in LightTools help streamline phosphor material manufacturing for solid-state lighting applications. LightTools now provides the flexibility to specify phosphor mixture ratios as a percentage by volume or weight. During manufacturing, this simplifies the process of determining phosphor particle concentration and relating model parameters to laboratory procedures.

Improvements to design management: The LightTools optical property manager helps users more efficiently manage their design data by providing a central location for assigning, changing optical properties throughout a model and defining defaults applied to new objects.
In addition, LightTools 7.3 has been enhanced to accelerate operations, especially for large models, and includes 64-bit support that effectively eliminates model size limitations.

LightTools version 7.3 is available now and can be obtained by emailing ora_support@synopsys.com