IES files
To get the information from the lamps we have built and tested onto a computer screen for the creation of lighting designs we have to produce what are called IES files. Industrial luminaires or LED lighting, such as commercial fluorescent or LED illuminators are represented in electronic form. This means that to use a particular setting or led light bulb in the lighting design, you need to convert it to digital form.
Using a device called a goniometer it measures distribution of light emitted from the LED luminaires and saves these photometric files in ies or ltd. The process of scanning the light distribution depends on the model of the light source and can be from several minutes to several hours.
Written in the form of digital images of the spatial distribution of light, itcan be used in projects such as lighting design DIALux programs.While the machine is scanning it is in a blacked out room where there is no reflection of light off the walls. The walls are made of light-absorbing material and so provide accurate measurements without the interference of the beam emitted from the luminaire.