LTB Soft has announced LTB Light 8.0 (http://www.ltblight.com), an
update of the US$299 Mac OS X application that permits natural and
artificial lighting calculation with a color radiosity method applied
to a finite elements plan.
LTB Light implements OpenGL. Data management take places through an
internal CAD system, directly in a perspective view. It’s possible to
introduce flatten surfaces with colored glazing, furniture, curved
surfaces like cylinders, cones, ellipsoids, hyperboloids and complex
objects like cross vaults. LTB Light is able to share information
with other CADs through DXF and PICT files.
Light sources are totally managed inside the main program; it’s
possible to import, show, modify and use the IESNA LM-63 photometric
data files (ASCII text file commonly used by North American lighting
fixture manufacturers) EULUMDAT (an European standard) and even PICT
and DXF files (the program can convert a drawing in a photometry).
Photometric data is modeled through 36 “C” (azimuth) curves and 181
“gamma” (zenith) angles; while lamp color is controlled by its color
temperature or RGB color.
LTB Light works with Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. It’s Universal Binary
so runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.