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5 Tips to Setting up Lighting in Higher Education Auditoriums

Audio/Video Design Consultant Brad Gallagher weighs in on 5 key tips end users should follow while installing lighting in a college auditorium.

July 22, 2015 TD Staff 2 Comments

What the image is depicting is the minimum lighting zone requirements for a presentation space (3 zones).  Circuit 1 provides audience lighting (for note taking).  Circuit 2 provides board lighting.  The board lighting allows bright lighting for a whiteboard/chalkboard or low/off lighting levels when using projection.  The presenter lighting (Circuit 3) may include task lighting and or key lighting (to highlight and provide focus on the presenter).

Provide lighting presets for different minimum contrast ratios

Going back to our earlier discussion, the challenge in presentation spaces is to strike a compromise between having enough lighting for note taking, without washing out the projection screen (which reduces the contrast ratio).  Some of the lighting for students in the front of the room will inevitably bleed onto the projection screen.

The solution is to provide multiple lighting presets that provide varying compromises for different circumstances.  Per ANSI/INFOCOMM 3M-2011, this means creating presets with minimum contrast ratios of 7:1, 15:1, or 50:1 to serve Passive Viewing, Basic Decision Making, and Analytical Decision Making, respectively.  This is just a fancy way of saying that we need presets for different compromises between image quality and lighting levels for note taking.

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Tagged With: Higher Ed, Lighting

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  1. LynTec PoE Lighting Control System Saves Client On Their Energy Bill - My TechDecisions says:
    May 30, 2019 at 8:02 am

    […] Read Next: 5 Tips to Setting up Lighting in Higher Education Auditoriums […]

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    June 13, 2019 at 10:00 am

    […] Audio/Video Design Consultant Brad Gallagher weighs in on 5 key tips end users should follow while installing lighting in a college auditorium in this featured article, “5 Tips to Setting up Lighting in Higher Education Auditoriums“ […]

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