I write this during the midst of Strategies in Light (SIL) week held Feb. 28-Mar. 2 in Anaheim this year, and our feature-length coverage of the event will have to wait until the next issue. But I'd like to share some highlights of the week and an interesting experience I had on Convention Way leading to the Anaheim Convention Center. The co-located Strategies in Light, The LED Show, and Lightspace California events were all excellent as was our LEDs Magazine Sapphire Awards Gala.
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First, let's discuss that experience. Convention Way is a short street off Harbor Drive that passes between the Marriott and Hilton hotels and dead-ends at the convention center. One night after the show closed, I crossed Convention Way mid-block - yes, I jaywalked. But as I approached the median, I realized the light around me had gotten brighter. The street lights in the median on Convention Way have occupancy sensors that can be triggered by pedestrians or automobiles as I confirmed, watching the street.
Now at first I was happy to see that Anaheim had installed autonomous controls, even on a fairly busy street. So often event venues demonstrate poor lighting as I detailed one year after my visit to the Street and Area Lighting Conference. In Anaheim, visitors to a lighting event could experience state-of-the art lighting.
But then I took a closer look at the surroundings along Convention Way. The short street is horribly overlit. Sidewalks on each side of the street have post-top pedestrian lighting that doesn't appear to have any dimming capability (although I was never out there late at night). Frankly, I'm not sure the street lights in the median add much in the way of safety given the output from the post-top lights. The CCTs of the pedestrian and street lights also appear to be a mismatch, although dark-sky advocates would be happy to note that the street lights appeared relatively warm. And hopefully Anaheim is using the autonomous technology elsewhere. I suppose the bright and cooler pedestrian lights were judged necessary given the heavy pedestrian traffic near the Disney resort.
As for the SIL events, we had some interesting keynotes. Indeed, Jonathan Erland, founder of the Pickfair Institute and a professional deeply involved in Hollywood cinematography, may have convinced me that we still need a better color metric. Even the IES TM-30 metrics don't characterize light in a manner that predicts accurate color capture by a camera. Now our eyes are different from a camera, but the work that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is doing on a metric called spectral similarity index bears watching. It might serve the lighting industry well. And our best LED lighting could still be improved in terms of spectral power distribution.
There was also a great presentation on using visible light for continuous room disinfection. I promise you will see more on this topic.
If you missed the show or our coverage, come up to date quickly by viewing our Top 5 videos from each day. There is also a video with interviews of the Sapphire Award winners. And you can read more about the winners and high scores in our Sapphire Awards coverage.
Maury Wright,
Editor
