Laboratory of Ergonomics

Designing room lighting with

DIALux
Instructions for laboratory course

Part 1. Creating the interiors

1.

Changing the application language to English

1. Open DIALux from your desktop or find the

application on yout computer.
Go to Plik > Ustawienia > Opcje Oglne

2.

2. In the window opened click the Globalne tab

and in the dropdown box next to Jzyk find and
choose English (United Kingdom).
Restart the application afterwards.

Creating a new project

1. On the welcome screen choose New Interior Project

Laboratory of Ergonomics

2. In the Room Editor tab fill the Width and Length

of the room according to your task description.

3. You can add additional points From the same window

or by clicking the right mouse button and Insert Point
on the screen to the right. Then You can drag the
created points to shape the room the way you want.
Please note that a non-rectangular room will be
harder to optimize later - but feel free to try.

4. Once Done, Click OK. Current Tab will change to

General. Fill Room name and description as You see
fit and move to Room Surfaces tab.

5. There choose the materials (colors) for floor,

walls and ceiling. For walls you should rather use
colors with Reflection Factor below 30%.

6. You may choose the colors for each wall individually

by choosing each wall from the Project tree, and then
the materials from the menu above the tree.
It is important to notice the way in which Menu is
organizes in DIALux:
top: changes the most, shows parametres and
properties for currently selected object/function. Think
of it as lowest level menu
bottom left: the Guide is a linear list of steps to be
taken in designing light in rooms. Sort of (top) first
level menu
bottom right: Tree view with several tabs at the
bottom (Project, Furnitures, Textures etc.) Think of it
as second (mid) level menu.
And this is how the menus will be reffered to in this
instruction: top, mid and low level menu.

Laboratory of Ergonomics

3.

Moving around the room with the different views

1. You can view your room from different angles to see

how it looks and precisely place neccessary objects.
You can change the view in the top menu bar.
The views are presented by yellow-colored boxes
and are, in order: 3D view, Floor Plan, Side View and
Front View

3. You can choose different cursor functions from the

top menu bar. These are: Select, Zoom, Rotate,
Move, Roam Scene
Try for yourself to check all possibilities and become
somewhat fluent in this.

4.

2. Once a view was opened it can be also

accessed from the tab menu bar below the main
screen.

4. The tabs below main screen is also where your

reports will show!

Adding furniture and task areas

1. Click Furniture in top level menu, or the Furniture tab

in mid level menu.
Browse the tree to find the items listed in your task.
Then, using drag and drop, Put the appropriate
items to your room view. Then move it around to
place them properly or use the properties window to
input dimensions directly. Repeat the process for all
Furniture needed.

Laboratory of Ergonomics

2. In the same way add special areas: UGR

Calculation point (Diverse Elements folder).
For each work areas select Output results find it in properties window once an object is
selected.
You may also add items like windows and doors:
find them by browsing the tree.