Overview
The Elite Software Inpoint and Outpoint DOS based Programs are designed to quickly calculate light levels on uniform grid points in both vertical and horizontal planes. Outpoint is designed for outdoor lighting applications using a gridded area containing up to 8,100 points. It is ideal for sports fields, stadiums, parking lots, and roadway lighting. Inpoint is specifically designed for indoor applications where consideration of wall, floor, and ceiling reflectances is critical.
Inpoint allows lighted areas to have up to 441 grid points. It is especially suited for show rooms, lobbies, special offices, and meeting areas. Both Inpoint and Outpoint use standard IES format photometric data files as supplied by all luminaire manufacturers. The software is supplied with several hundred photometric data files from various brands of manufacturers including Lithonia, Guth, Metalux, and others. The designer can specify luminaire types, luminaire positions, mounting heights, orientations, angle of tilt, and the spacing of grid points.
Inpoint provides numerous calculation options related to indoor lighting including equivalent sphere illumination, illuminance with body shadow, target illuminance with desired viewing angle, background illuminance, contrast rendering factor, lighting effectiveness factor, and visual comfort probability. In both programs, the horizontal and vertical footcandles are printed in a tabular form that also shows X and Y coordinates. Additionally, each program can also display and print a graphic contour plot of the lighted area. A DXF file of this plot can also be created.
Program Input
Both the Inpoint and Outpoint programs use full screen editing features that provide a simple "fill in the blank" input procedure. All input data is checked at the time of entry so that no improper data can be entered. Upon completion of the input process, all data is saved to disk and can be reviewed and edited whenever desired. Four types of data are requested: general project data, lighted area data, project luminaire data, and general luminaire data.
The general project data includes the project name and number, the client, the date, and the designer name. The lighted area data includes information on the target plane position and dimensions, reflectance values (if any) for walls, ceilings, and floors. With Inpoint, the designer can also specify regions that have different reflectances within the walls and floor, The luminaire data specific to each project includes location and type for each luminaire, height above ground, and the angles of position as concerns bearing, tilt, and cant. An unlimited number of unique luminaires can be aimed at a target region. The general luminaire data includes luminaire type, dimensions, number of lamps, lumens per lamp, watts per lamp, ballast factor, ballast photofactor, and candela data.
Program Output
The Inpoint and Outpoint programs both provide four basic output reports. These reports are the general project and lighted area data report, the luminaire data report, horizontal/vertical footcandle light levels report, and graphic isofootcandle plots. You can specify exactly which reports are to be printed, and the reports can be printed to the screen, disk file, or printer as desired.
The graphs can also be created as DXF files so that they can be used with popular CAD software. Shown below are sample reports and graphs from the Outpoint program. Inpoint reports are similar.
Calculation Method
The Inpoint and Outpoint programs use the inverse-square methodology for point by point calculations as described in the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Lighting Handbook Reference Volume. Outpoint uses the point source approach. Inpoint uses point or area source light sources and the unit distance illuminance/luminance plane concept.
System Requirements
Elite's DOS software applications Inpoint and Outpoint are compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP. The minimum hardware requirements to run these applications are the same as the minimum hardware requirements to run the operating system that the application is installed on. Additionally, 1 MB of hard disk space is required to install and run Inpoint or Outpoint.