Lighting Analysts, Inc., a world leader in lighting design software, is pleased to announce a number of important enhancements to our ElumTools lighting calculation and visualization add-in for Autodesk® Revit®. These changes have been released in ElumTools 2016 as well as backwardly integrated into new releases of ElumTools 2015 and 2014 (for Revit® 2016, 2015 and 2014 respectively).

The latest release of ElumTools contains enhanced support for luminaire families with nested and multiple light sources, making the software compatible with previously unworkable content. Lighting Analysts has also supplied a variety of basic luminaire families (recessed, surface and suspended rectangles and cylinders) for end users to adopt and morph to their own needs. Our new cloud-based photometric Instabase system has now been added to ElumTools, allowing Revit users the ability to search for luminaire photometry across a database of many of the lighting industry’s most prominent manufacturers. Search results can then be easily matched with any luminaire family geometry using a drag and drop process. “This alleviates much of the pain of getting real lighting performance data into Revit,” says Dave Speer, Director of Marketing for Lighting Analysts.

ElumTools’ visualization capabilities have also taken a large step forward with the new ability to save and recall renderings of all calculated environments. The new ElumTools software provides the ability to simulate light source Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) and colored sources or filters. For enhanced visualizations, designers can now pick their favorite viewpoint in any rendered environment and perform a post-radiosity ray trace to visualize specular reflections, glossiness, refined shadows and more precise surface luminance gradients due to direct light.

As a final improvement, ElumTools has changed in terms of internal data storage and project initialization, allowing it to more seamlessly integrate with the Revit project management system. This will make all BIM Managers very happy.

Download a free 30-day Trial and explore the new ElumTools at www.elumtools.com.