Dial Europe: a decision support tool for early lighting design

DIAL-Europe  is  the  final  product  of  a  three  year European project that ended in March 2003. During this project the “Swiss” tool LesoDIAL, developed during the IEA task 21 in 1999, has been expanded with, among other items, an artificial lighting module. The objective of this module is to support artificial lighting design for architects in the early  design stage. The tool gives help to find lighting solutions and provides an estimate of illuminance values on the work plane and walls and provides additional guidance on qualitative aspects and visual comfort as well as on switching control and integration with daylight. The module is  based  on  generic  light sources and luminaires. This paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents an overview of the new functionalities of the final  version  of  DIAL-Europe,  and  the  second  part focuses on the artificial lighting module.