N99-06 - University of Idaho
Contents
1. GE Aladdin software generates an idealized pattern of light fixture placement based on a mixture of roadway and light fixture characteristics The lighting designer then uses the data to decide where lights should be located in the design A proprietary ITD software tool takes data from the lighting circuit design and calculates minimum wire gauges given an acceptable voltage drop The designer then completes and documents the design These tools have several disadvantages With the GE Aladdin software the program uses an idealized straight road to determine a light fixture placement pattern The designer must then try to fit this idealized pattern of light placement to an actual roadway which is often time intensive The ITD software that calculates wire gauges is inflexible It creates no output file or other opportunity to review the results of previous data It can also generate illogical results when calculating multi branch circuits Both software packages are DOS based and the designer cannot use them from within MicroStation Switching between programs adds time to the design process Additionally on some networks designers working in a Windows NT or UNIX environment cannot use these packages at all MicroStation Tools 3 OVERVIEW OF PROJECTS The University of Idaho s National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology NIATT contracted with ITD to conduct two research projects Research Project O2. exist for the roadway in question or if there is a template the light unit pattern might be incorrect for this particular roadway If this occurs either the designer would have to create a new template or place the light units manually defeating the purpose of the program e Another issue arises when the template scale needs to be adjusted to the scale of the current design plan The result may be that the given light units are then too far apart or too close together To resolve this problem the program would have to re place the light units itself or the designer would have to do it manually again defeating the purpose of the program MicroStation Tools 13 Third consider developing a program that with minimal input from the designer will perform all calculations and automatically place light units on the design plan The program would first need to know the luminaire types mounting heights mast arm lengths and offset for the given design The program could try every feasible combination of these elements to find the best one for the given roadway design Or the designer could manually specify the mounting heights mast arm lengths offset and luminaire types which would greatly reduce calculation time For either option the next step would be for the designer to enter the type of pattern for the light unit placement Some examples include left side only right side only stagger opposite opposite through
3. 040 1 066 15 22 C 16 APPENDIX A CIRCUIT COMP SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION 17 APPENDIX B CIRCUIT COMP SOFTWARE DESIGN DESCRIPTION cerea nnn nnn nnn 46 APPENDIX C CIRCUIT COMP USER S MANUAL earn n nn nu uu naa a nana uu anas aa aaa 137 MicroStation Tools EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction amp Background The Idaho Transportation Department ITD is interested in developing two new software tools to improve the efficiency of the highway lighting and signalization design process ITD currently performs road lighting signalization design with the MicroStation CADD design program plus two specialized software tools These tools each have disadvantages The GTE Aladdin software suggests a pattern of light fixture placement so the designer can decide where lights should be located However the program uses data from an idealized straight road As a result the designer has to adjust the pattern to the road characteristics of the current design adding additional time to the design process The proprietary ITD software calculates minimum wire gauges for the designer This program creates no output file and it sometimes generates illogical results In addition both packages are DOS based They cannot be used from wit
4. DEVELOPMENT OF MICROSTATION TOOLS TO COMPUTE CIRCUIT REQUIREMENTS AND LIGHTING DESIGN ELEMENTS FINAL REPORT NOVEMBER 1999 Report Budget Number FMK 759 ITD Contract 97 50 NIATT Report 99 06 Prepared for IDAHO TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT Prepared by NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO Barry Klas Software Engineer Michael Kyte Principal Investigator Melissa Lines Technical Writer TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY eoe edes noe 1 INTRODUCTION amp 1 1 OVERVIEW OF 1 STATUS PROJECTS oe enirn na IM E D RPM EI 2 1 Circuit Software called Circuit 2 2 Feasibility Report for Light Fixture Placement 22 2 212 000000010000 2 5 enhn 2 INTRODUCTION 3 BACKGROUND ssis 3 OVERVIEW OF PROJECTS nasus ao aaa 4 RESEARCH PROJECT ONE CIRCUIT 4 RESEARCH PROJECT TWO FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING LIGHT FIXTURE PLACEMENT SO
5. FTWARE 4 STATUS OF PROJEGCTS Sraa s ED 5 RESEARCH PROJECT ONE CIRCUIT 5 WORK TASKS HAS 5 Work Task 1 Software Requirements Specification SRS 5 Work Task 2 Software Design Description 500 5 How Circuit Comp Will 000000000 6 Work Task Software Prototype sessi esee 6 How Wire Comp 6 WHERE WE STAND NOW airian aaa 7 TEE NEX TOTER a e C LE UC A M 7 RESEARCH PROJECT TWO FEASIBILITY REPORT FOR LIGHT FIXTURE PLACEMENT UT 11 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH 11 WHAT WE NEON 11 M RTT 12 5 1 ete essa sa EEEE ERREA EEEE 13 MicroStation Tools CALCULATING LUMINANCE AND ILLUMINANCE E 15 A SEPARATE TOOL VS INTEGRATED WITH CIRCUIT
6. Figure 2 Circuit Comp Computation Report MicroStation Tools 9 SERVICE 4 8 CONDUIT ENDING LOCATION STARTING LOCATION SEGMENT CODE SCALES SHOWN it Schedule it Comp Ci Figure 3 10 MicroStation Tools RESEARCH PROJECT TWO FEASIBILITY REPORT FOR LIGHT FIXTURE PLACEMENT SOFTWARE Overview of Research Problem NIATT has researched the feasibility of developing a software tool that would provide computer aided road lighting design The Aladdin software that ITD currently uses generates an idealized pattern of light fixture placement based on a mixture of roadway and light fixture characteristics The designer uses that data to determine where the light fixtures should be placed on the design plan and places them manually The drawback to this tool is that it uses an idealized straight road to determine a light fixture placement pattern The designer must then try to fit this idealized pattern of light placement to an actual roadway which is often time intensive In addition it is not available from within MicroStation adding unnecessary time to the design process What We Envision We envision a powerful new tool that would require minimal input from the designer It would perform all calculations determine where to place the light units on the design plan and automatically place them on the plan for the designer to review It would us
7. May 1998 Software Requirements Specifications for Circuit Comp April 1997 Software Design Description for Circuit Comp March 1998 Software prototype of Wire Comp May 1998 Currently ITD is testing the Wire Comp prototype to confirm that the program s wire gauge and voltage calculations are correct The Next Step Once Wire Comp s calculations are tested and verified by ITD NIATT will integrate Wire Comp into Circuit Comp and complete development of the product Final development will involve four steps e Finish writing code for Circuit Comp Beta test the complete program Modify code to address any problems found in beta version e Write User s Manual MicroStation Tools 7 Circuit Comp icroStation Menu Toolbar iT Settings Options Circuit Options Report Options ODBC Connection ET EE EE ACCESS dgn file Database Figure 1 Circuit Comp Structure MicroStation Tools Circuit Report Compute Circuit BIS ES Service Circuit Segment Number Load Length Volts Dropped Volt Drop Gau 123 Circuit Volt Drop lt E E Circuit Volt Drop 123 145 123 123 245 123 Circuit Load Optimize 2 3 4 5 B 8 43 0 Cancel 3 m E 23 m _ D m m m _ TT GY Tee E
8. ad the design file and check that all items in the plan are included in the Access database If any items are missing such as circuit type or service information Circuit Comp will prompt the designer to enter the missing information e Using data from the design file Circuit Comp computes wire gauges and voltages for the circuits e The computations will appear onscreen for the designer s review See Figure 2 p 9 e Once the designer approves the computations Circuit Comp will then place the results directly on the design plan and generate a project circuit schedule See Figure 3 p 10 Work Task 3 Software Prototype In May 1998 NIATT completed Circuit Comp s wire calculation algorithm called Wire Comp Wire Comp is the guts of the Circuit Comp program where all the circuit calculations take place It is currently being tested by ITD How Wire Comp Works Wire Comp uses the information the designer has entered into Circuit Comp such as length of each segment in each circuit allowable voltage drop for each circuit number of segments in each circuit type of circuit etc It computes the most feasible wire gauge for each segment the voltage drop across each segment and the total voltage drop for each circuit The results are then returned to Circuit Comp for onscreen display MicroStation Tools 6 Where We Stand Now The following has been delivered to ITD 1 2 3 4 User s Manual for Wire Comp
9. at would provide computer aided road lighting design within MicroStation The powerful new tool we envision would perform all calculations determine where to place the light units on the design plan and automatically place the light units on the plan for the designer to review It would use actual highway designs to generate a pattern for light fixture placement instead of an idealized straight road Recommendations Developing such powerful software will be a complex task so we suggest tackling the project in three stages e First write a program that would calculate the illumination of a given light configuration so the designer could determine the correct locations for the lights and place them on the plan manually e Then consider expanding the program to include pre existing roadway templates with pre set light placement patterns e Finally the program could be further developed to perform all calculations and automatically place light units on the design plan MicroStation Tools 2 DEVELOPMENT OF MICROSTATION TOOLS TO COMPUTE CIRCUIT REQUIREMENTS AND LIGHTING DESIGN ELEMENTS INTRODUCTION The Idaho Transportation Department ITD is interested in developing two new software tools to improve the efficiency of the highway lighting and signalization design process BACKGROUND ITD currently performs road lighting design with the MicroStation CADD design program plus two specialized software tools The
10. e actual highway designs to generate a pattern for light fixture placement instead of an idealized straight road In addition the tool would be available within MicroStation which would greatly speed up the entire design process The tool could be separate from the circuit tool Circuit Comp or both tools could be merged into one lighting software package MicroStation Tools 11 NIATI Background To our knowledge there is not currently a program on the market that provides complete computer aided road lighting design within MicroStation Therefore we would be starting from scratch developing a very complex program The program has to examine a wide variety of data and perform extremely complex calculations with that data The program must compile e standard Photometric data from the various lighting fixture manufacturers e data such as roadway width pavement type lane configuration fixture lamp type desired horizontal foot candle levels luminaire supports etc the type of pattern for the light unit placement such as left side only right side only etc Then it needs to calculate e feasible light mounting heights mast arm lengths and luminaire types for the given road design e the luminance and illuminance for the given light unit settings e light fixture spacing and uniformity ratios and determine if the design is within allowable range Finally it needs to determine the best locations for each light unit a
11. hin MicroStation adding even more time to the design process And on some Windows NT or Unix environments they cannot be used at all Overview of Projects The University of Idaho s National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology NIATT contracted with ITD to conduct two research projects 1 NIATT is developing a software tool that runs within MicroStation and provides lighting circuitry graphics and also calculates the minimum wire gauges for various electrical circuits in illumination and signalization NIATT has researched the feasibility of developing a software tool that provides complete computer aided road lighting design also within MicroStation MicroStation Tools 1 Status of Projects 1 Circuit Software called Circuit Comp NIATT has completed the Software Requirements Specification SRS the Software Design Description SDD and a prototype of Circuit Comp s circuit calculation algorithm which is called Wire Comp Wire Comp is the guts of the Circuit Comp program where all the circuit calculations take place It is currently being tested by ITD to confirm that its wire gauge and voltage calculations are correct Once ITD verifies Wire Comp s calculations NIATT will integrate Wire Comp into Circuit Comp and finish development of the Circuit Comp product 2 Feasibility Report for Light Fixture Placement Software NIATT has researched the feasibility of developing a software tool th
12. median etc The designer will also enter the lighting standards to determine how far apart the lights should be placed The program would then calculate the luminance and illuminance for the given light unit settings Using this information along with the design file itself and the light pattern the program would determine the best locations for each light unit and place each one on the design plan At this point we see two issues that need to be resolved 1 The designer must select a light pattern from a list of patterns stored in a database In some cases the designer may need to use a mixture of several patterns or may have to create an entirely new one The new patterns would have to be added to the database before they could be used but the program could be written in such a way that the designer would be able to easily enter the new pattern into the database 2 Another issue is the efficiency of the algorithm that places the light units This algorithm would have to determine when the lighting standards have been met for the given light pattern Developing the most efficient algorithm is a trial and error process which will take time In addition once we develop the most efficient algorithm the calculation MicroStation Tools 14 process could still require many iterations before the program determines the correct placement of the light units This could take from several minutes to several hours Calc
13. nd place each one on the design plan Developing an efficient algorithm for all of these calculations is an involved process the only way to determine its efficiency is through trial and error MicroStation Tools 12 Recommendations It is NIATT s recommendation that this large project be undertaken in three stages First write a program that assists the designer in determining light unit placement The designer would specify the mounting height mast arm length and luminaire type The program would determine the illumination and display a graphic representation of this on the plan sheet Based on the light patterns the designer could then determine the correct placement of the light units and place them on the plan manually This would all take place within MicroStation Second consider expanding the program to include pre existing roadway templates With this program the designer would select from a library of pre existing roadway templates with light fixtures already placed on them NIATT would create these templates with the Aladdin software based on common ITD roadway designs and convert them to run within MicroStation Once the designer selected a template the program would scale the template to the correct size based on the scale of the current design plan While the template concept will be suitable for a certain number of roadway configurations we see two issues to be resolved e Atemplate may not
14. ne Circuit Software NIATT is developing a software tool that provides lighting circuitry graphics and also calculates the minimum wire gauges for various electrical circuits in illumination and signalization The tool will identify each element in the lighting design save it to a database and create a circuit schedule and material quantity plan sheets of this information will be available to the designer in real time and within MicroStation This tool written with MDL will also be portable to MicroStation platforms running on DOS NT and UNIX Research Project Two Feasibility of Developing Light Fixture Placement Software NIATT has researched the feasibility of developing a software tool that provides computer aided road lighting design It would perform all calculations determine where to place the light units on the design plan and automatically place the light units on the plan for the designer to review It would use actual highway designs to generate a pattern for light fixture placement instead of an idealized straight road In addition the tool would be available within MicroStation which would greatly speed up the entire design process The tool could be separate from the circuit tool Circuit Comp or both tools could be merged into one lighting software package MicroStation Tools 4 STATUS OF PROJECTS RESEARCH PROJECT ONE CIRCUIT SOFTWARE The circuit software tool NIATT is developing is called Circ
15. re placement software The process will involve 6 steps NIATT will 1 Work with ITD to determine the Software Requirements Specifications for the light fixture placement software Write the Software Design Specifications Begin development of a prototype for the software Beta test the prototype Modify the code to address any problems found with the beta version Sv oU Write a User s Manual for the software MicroStation Tools 16 APPENDIX CIRCUIT COMP SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION MicroStation Tools 17 APPENDIX CIRCUIT COMP SOFTWARE DESIGN DESCRIPTION MicroStation Tools 46 APPENDIX C CIRCUIT USER S MANUAL MicroStation Tools 137
16. uit Comp Circuit Comp will assist the lighting designer in three ways It will e calculate wire gauges for designated circuits e store circuit specifications in an Access database and automatically place the text on the plan sheet e produce onscreen reports of computations as well as a project circuit schedule These functions will all be performed within the MicroStation environment eliminating the need for any external programs Work Tasks NIATT Has Completed Work Task 1 Software Requirements Specification SRS This document specifies the operating environment for this new tool and exactly what it will be required to do The SRS includes hardware requirements operating systems requirements additional software database MicroStation InRoads requirements input data types and structures output requirements documentation requirements computational details and a list of features See Appendix A Work Task 2 Software Design Description SDD This document defines how the software will work The SDD incorporates ITD s software requirements and describes in detail the software NIATT will be writing in terms of its structure data and algorithms See Appendix B MicroStation Tools 5 How Circuit Comp Will Work See Figure p 8 for a diagram of Circuit Comp s structure e Within MicroStation the designer picks the lighting components and places them on the plan sheet e Circuit Comp will re
17. ulating Luminance and llluminance Whatever solution is chosen the most important function of a light fixture placement program is calculating luminance and illuminance Each version of this program requires that the luminance and illuminance be calculated and used in some way We intend to use the formula found on page 4 of Informational Guide for Roadway Lighting published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials A Separate Tool vs Integrated With Circuit Comp The tool could be separate from Circuit Comp or both tools could be merged into one lighting software package There are two aspects to this issue fit were one program the designer would only have to enter the data one time While he was entering data into the lighting program it would automatically be entered into Circuit Comp Any changes he made in the lighting program would automatically be updated in Circuit Comp e Onthe other hand integrating the lighting program into Circuit Comp would greatly increase development time It would also mean a major delay in finishing the Circuit Comp product MicroStation Tools 15 The Next Step Circuit Comp It is NIATT s recommendation that we first complete the Circuit Comp project currently underway then begin developing the Light Fixture Placement Software Light Fixture Placement Software Once Circuit Comp is completed NIATT will begin development of the light fixtu
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