To Photometric, or not to Photometric

Revit's default light sources work. Most of the time though, these default or standard light source definitions will not create an acceptable diffusion of light within a room. We will investigate what results can be achieved between a default light source, and a photometric light source in Revit.

1.1 Standard Light Source definition

1.1 Rendered Result

2.1 Photometric Light Source definition

2.2 Rendered Result

There are pro's and con's with both light sources: 

• Standard Light Sources:
• Pro: Lighter in size in terms of the data it contains
• Pro: Renders are completed faster due to the above
• Con: Renders might not be an accurate representation of the actual light diffusion
• Photometric Light Sources: 
• Pro: Actual diffusion is more accurate due to the IES file attached to the light source
• Con: Rendering time will suffer, as there are a lot more data to process