IES photometry file formats

Which versions are people seeing? There's 1986, 1991, 1995, and 2002 standards. What are fixture and lamp vendors actually providing?

Randolph

I think in Real Live(TM) you will find everything.

The good thing about IES is that you can read the essential
bits from a 95 file with knowledge of the 86 specs. IIRC most
changes where in the area of required key-words and allowed
formats. So - if anything - the variations got limited by the later
versions (not sure about 2002, though).

I haven't seen a lot of 2002 files. One reason is certainly, that
I stopped looking at IES files. The other is that the manufacturers
don't re-release their files in a newer version just because
there is a new spec available. The design of most fittings on
the market predates most of the specs so it's only a matter of
when the manufacturers finally got their products measured
which defines the format of their files.

I think that's why you will find more 1995 files than anything
else. It was just the right time for the industry to go digital.

In Europe IES gets a bit side lined by Eulumdat and
the various proprietary plugins for Dialux etc. Although, I
think that Relux and AGI32 are based on the IES format
and just package some other information with it.

Regards,
Thomas

That sounds about right. I did a quick informal survey of the data available from four manufacturers which distribute in the USA. Here's what I found:

   Corelite linear IES 1995 (one file checked)
   Lightolier broad line IES 1995, 2002 (two files checked)
   Lucifer Lighting cutting edge IES 2002 (one file checked)
   SIMKAR inexpensive linear IES 1986 (426 files)
            IES 1995 (18 files)

SIMKAR seems to have licensed a number of older designs, and this probably accounts for the large number of 1986-format files. The newer Lightolier file I checked was 2002 format; the older was 1995.

Randolph

···

On Dec 7, 2008, at 3:16 AM, Thomas Bleicher wrote:

I think in Real Live(TM) you will find everything.

The good thing about IES is that you can read the essential
bits from a 95 file with knowledge of the 86 specs. IIRC most
changes where in the area of required key-words and allowed
formats. So - if anything - the variations got limited by the later
versions (not sure about 2002, though).

I haven't seen a lot of 2002 files. One reason is certainly, that
I stopped looking at IES files. The other is that the manufacturers
don't re-release their files in a newer version just because
there is a new spec available. The design of most fittings on
the market predates most of the specs so it's only a matter of
when the manufacturers finally got their products measured
which defines the format of their files.

I think that's why you will find more 1995 files than anything
else. It was just the right time for the industry to go digital.

In Europe IES gets a bit side lined by Eulumdat and
the various proprietary plugins for Dialux etc. Although, I
think that Relux and AGI32 are based on the IES format
and just package some other information with it.

Regards,
Thomas

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