Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 08/04/2017 UPDATE 17/08/26 - This article was first published on August 25th, 2017 in Urban Ag News. It was all so easy until recently. Plants require light in order to grow, and...
Academic Articles and Research
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Giving Light
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/05/12 Giving light ... this phrase symbolizes a new philosophy of lighting design, a philosophy in the sense of how we think about the lighting design process. Much like the...
Filtered LEDs and Light Pollution
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/03/03 UPDATE 2016/03/03 - Revised Figure 6. The problem is astronomical -- the blue light emitted by LED roadway luminaires has been shown to contribute to light...
Entraining Circadian Rhythms
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/04/21 There is a fascinating research paper called "Colour as a Signal for Entraining the Mammalian Circadian Clock" that has just been published in the open access...
Daylight Factors
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES,Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/03/05 Nine out of ten daylight simulation programs agree ... and therein lies a story worth retelling. Daylight in History The story begins in the sixth century with the...
Controlling Multicolor LED Luminaires
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/06/11 San Jose, CA, USA: March 31, 2016. LED Engin, Inc. announces the world’s first 7-color, high power LED to be produced on a single emitter. The compact LZ704MU00...
Color Temperature and Outdoor Lighting
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/07/22 UPDATE: Sports field lighting analysis added 15/10/12. [An edited version of this article was published as "STREET LIGHTS: Light pollution depends on the light source CCT"...
Climate-Based Daylight Modeling
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/03/26 daylight, n. The light of day. Apart from having a wonderfully circular definition in most English-language dictionaries, daylight really is just another form...
Botanical Light Pollution
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/02/17 Blue-rich light from LED streetlights, we are told, is the nemesis of professional and amateur astronomers. Blue light is preferentially scattered by the atmosphere,...
Blue Light Hazards and Television
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2017/05/19 If you have grandchildren, you may be old enough to remember “black and white” (that is, monochrome) televisions sets with rabbit ear antennae and some of the...