SOURCE: Web Urbanist
Access to natural daylight has long been one of the biggest limiting factors in building design – some solutions involve reflecting real daylight from the outdoors, but until now no solution has been able to mimic natural refraction processes and fool our minds into thinking we are surrounded by actual sunlight.
Developed by CoeLux in Italy, this new form of artificial light is able to dupe humans, cameras and computers alike using a thin coating of nanoparticules to simulate Rayleigh scattering, a natural process that takes place in Earth’s atmosphere causing diffuse sky radiation. Far beyond simply making lights brighter or bluer, this approach accurately replicates how miles of atmosphere transform light within just a few millimeters of surface space. Professor Paolo Di Trapani of Italy’s University of Insubria has so far spent over 10 years working on this system.
The source of illumination is an LED projector that emits white light in a spectrum that mimics rays of sunlight – meanwhile, a sophisticated optical system creates the sensation of the distance between the sky and the sun. Though the images shown here are all real and unedited, extensive 3D modeling preceded physical tests, prototypes, live demos and, finally, the finished product. “The objective included further developments of the existing Maxwell Render software functionality to include light scattering properties, light polarization effects, custom spectrum data (through spectrum curves or raw data) and light spectrum measurements, by including a virtual spectrophotometer,” explains the inventor.
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