In a church-reminiscent lighting project undertaken by the Lumen Center Italia’s “luum” technical lighting division, SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs were specified. Since the LEDs produce light that closely matches the spectrum of natural sunlight, they reportedly convey the colors and textures of the restored murals accurately, as they would naturally appear.
Augusto Grillo, president of Lumen Center Italia (LCI), the lighting company in Italy promoting the Pompeii heritage lighting project, explains, ”Because SunLike has a level of blue light similar to that of sunlight and a superior Color Index Rendering (CRI) and Color Quality Scale (CQS), we believe it is ideal for artwork and museum lighting. We are delighted with the amazing technology of SunLike LEDS and hope to adopt SunLike for more projects in the future.”
Celeb Won, executive vice president of global marketing at Seoul Semiconductor, notes, “We are pleased to have our SunLike Series LED technology chosen to illuminate the murals of Pompeii, a world heritage site. This is just the latest example of the success of the SunLike Series LEDs."
Background
The Lumen Center Italia (LCI) has developed spotlights that employ nine units of 25W COB-type SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs from Seoul Semiconductor to illuminate the restored murals in the Pompeii ruins in Casa dei Vettii, Italy. The SunLike Series LEDs reproduce the spectrum of sunlight as closely as possible to show the color of the object as it appears in natural light and provide a good sense of depth based on high contrast ratio to accurately represent the murals.
Most artificial lights, such as fluorescent lights and conventional LEDs, exhibit light with a different spectrum from natural sunlight. The light output of those devices typically has a higher peak of blue light when compared to sunlight. Even conventional LEDs with a high CRI (Color Rendering Index) of 90, have a significantly lower color quality than natural sunlight. The oversaturation of blue light produces a scattering effect, causing distortion in the color of objects and making it difficult to accurately identify their contrasts.
Science
SunLike LED technology, on the other hand, produces light with superior color quality compared with conventional LEDs because the spectrum of SunLike LEDs closely matches that of natural sunlight. Conventional artificial lighting has applied the color rendering index (CRI) that evaluates color quality based on fluorescent lamps. However, as LED technology has advanced, it has exceeded the color quality of fluorescent lamps. As a result, new standards of color quality scales are being used. In particular, if the existing CRI (color rendering) was the mechanical color used for experiments and measurements, CQS is characterized by the expression of more natural colors that the human eye can perceive.
... as LED technology has advanced, it has exceeded the color quality of fluorescent lamps.
In case of conventional LEDs, color rendering is high, but CQS is low. However, light produced by SunLike LEDs can achieve the best color quality in both color standards, such as color rendering and CQS because it has a 95%+ rating for both CRI and CQS. This is the same principle as expressing color by using the seven rainbow colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and further segmenting and quantifying color.
SunLike Series LEDs combine Seoul Semiconductor's optical semiconductor technology with Toshiba Materials' natural light spectrum technology, TRI-R technology, limits the level of blue light to that of sunlight and minimizes the light scattering phenomenon. So, premium lighting companies around the world, which need to implement the closest spectrum to sunlight with high quality, have expressed continuing interest in the SunLike LED technology.
