The Importance of mock-ups

With so many options available in the lighting field today, I feel that mock-ups are more and more important. While we can simulate what a light will do on a computer, you just can't beat seeing it with your own eyes. While AGI-32 is a great tool, there are some things that it does lack. One of those things is correctly calculating and modeling grazing applications. AGI-32 uses a meter for each point in the calculation, much like using a light meter in the field to register footcandles. The meter is placed on the surface that is being grazed. In AGI-32, when the angle of incidence is shallow, the meter does not read all of the light that is grazing across it. Coversely, if you were to point the meter at the light source, it would register more footcandles than are being delivered to the surface you are grazing. Hence, why it is still a good idea to mock-up grazing applications either in the field, or in a controlled space.

Below are two shots from a mock-up that I did for Ion Bank. They were concerned about using a grazing fixture to light a sign with a shallow profile. They did not want major shadowing from the linear LED grazer, and we were able to show with a mock-up that the shadows would be minimal on their sign. Sometimes something as simple as cutting letters out of cardboard will suffice for a client, as long as they can see what they will be provided.