Lighting Tutorials >
Indoor Lighting Analysis

The 3ds Max Design Lighting Analysis feature can help you evaluate how interior or exterior space is illuminated at different times of the day, or how interiors are affected by various man-made lighting systems.

In this tutorial, you will use a 3ds Max Design Light Meter object to evaluate how light intensity from a daylight source affects the lighting of an indoor tennis court. You’ll render the scene and export the Light Meter data to an Excel file, making it available for analysis by third parties. Also, you will overlay the image with a layer of Light Meter readings for a more visual representation of lighting intensity.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

- Use the Lighting Analysis Assistant to prepare a scene for lighting analysis
- Create a Daylight system
- Use a weather data file to set daylight system light intensity
- Create a Light Meter and adjust its sampling point density
- Adjust the range of color feedback from the Light Meter
- Convert Light Meter data to spreadsheet format
- Overlay Light Meter data onto a rendered image of the scene

Skill level: Intermediate

Time to complete: 1 hour

Preparation for This Tutorial

- If you have not already downloaded the tutorial files (MAX scenes and other assets), download them now and unzip them into a project folder called \Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 tutorials. See Where to Find Tutorial Files.
- On the Quick Access toolbar, click (Project Folder) and set your current project to Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 Tutorials.

#### Topics in this section

- Preparing the Scene
- Adding a Light Meter
- Analyzing the Lighting
- Exporting Light Meter Data and Rendering Light Meter Data