Can Revit do lighting calculations

[Anonymous]

I've been asked the question whether Revit can do lighting calculations to replace the use of programs like Relux. I know there are photometric web files in the fittings, are these used for calculations, or merely for rendering purposes?

I can't find it in help sections or tutorials, but I've seen calcs referred to on forums. Is this possible and if so, how?

Thanks in advance.

Elvis

[Anonymous]

Revit will not give you what you are looking for. Stick with Relux and don't waist your time.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Margaret. Does this mean it doesn't have a calculation tool, or it does and it's not very good? I think my boss has been told it has one by resellers, so I have to now find it and demonstrate it to rule it out.

[Anonymous]

We've just purchased Autodesk Ecotect for use in energy, daylighting, acoustic, and other analysis. But, until we're comfortable with anything ADesk puts out will still rely heavily on AGi, LitePro, & IES.

~BMC~

[jason.martin]

Revit MEP doesn't currently do "point-by-point" calculations. In product functionality related to lighting calculations is limited to the "Zonal Cavity" method.

[arcticad]

Not that I can put too much stock in my Sales Rep.
They claim point by point will be available in a "summer" update.

I'll be amazed when I see it.

[jason.martin]

If such promises are being made please let me know who your Sales Rep is. If you would be more comfortable with it please feel free to email it to me privately at jason dot martin at autodesk dot com.

jason

[clippincott-CL]

Jason,

Any idea when point-by-point calculations will be available in Revit MEP?

Thanks.

[jason.martin]

Unfortunately there is no information related to point by point lighting calcs in RME that I can share right now.
Sorry.
jason

[MattKincaid]

www.ElumTools.com

https://apps.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=9072663284035534468&appLang=en&os=Win64

[s.borello]

If your lighting fixture families are built correctly you will be able to get the average FC of a space but not point to point calculations... there is an add-in from AGI32 called elum tools that will allow for point to point calcs. 

[HVAC-Novice]

I second elumtools. A great software (Revit plugin) and does all design-related functions. You get what you pay for.

Revit is too coarse... no emergency lighting and it assumes the lowest fixture in a space to determine the height of all fixtures. For example, if you have a wall-mounted fixture at 7'(e.g. emergency light) and the other fixtures are at 12', it assumes all fixtures to be at 7'. 

It looks like the same person who implemented HVAC load and energy simulation did the lighting implementation.... it would be better for Adesk to eliminate all those features and concentrate all energy on features to make them actually useful for design. 

[Anonymous]

It can do lighting calculations with the insight addin, but they are nowhere as helpfull and accepted as lighting calculations made with Relux or Dialux. And doing a lighting analysis for a big project can cost you cloud credits (if I'm not mistaken) while Dialux (and I think Relux as well) is free of use.

[Mehmet.KARLIOGLU]

Hello,

We can do lighting calculations with revit, but it doesn't do point calculation as mentioned. Calculates the lux value on a field basis.

In the projects we did in Turkey we have made this calculation with Revit soft state.

Smart elements need to be created correctly, sometimes the calculation can not be done due to files with corrupted photometric values ...

Revit program lighting calculation formula does not have an international validity and autodesk does not have such a claim as far as I know. When compared with other calculation programs, the calculation values are close to each other.

I find this calculation quite successful. We also calculate lighting power density (w / m²) according to Leed criteria.

[HVAC-Novice]

another issue with REVIT lighting calculation is that it can't deal with LED ies files. LED lights use absolute lumens. 

Before I used elumtools I ended up just using a generic ies file with the correct total lumen number. obvioulsy this is questionable regarding light distribution....   that alone is a deal breaker since the proprietary light distribution data are crucial for lighting design. 

The plugins (e.g. elumtools) can use LED ies files. You really should give this a try. it does everything a professional standalone lighting software does, but integrated in Revit. 

[MattKincaid]

The issues with absolute photometry were mostly fixed in Revit 2019.  But there are still some caveats to be aware of.  This blog post does a good job of outlining.

https://bimchapters.blogspot.com/2018/04/lighting-in-revit-2019-lightfair-2018.html

[MuirEng]

We use Elumtools as well.

side comment: I've been experimenting with Revit and Elumtools for street lighting projects. The goal is to unify the software environment for both drawings and the calculations. Our standard method is AutoCAD and AGI32.  If anyone is interested in discussing that please PM me or open a new topic.