Simulating Headlamp Illumination Using Photometric Light Clusters

Assessing the ability of a driver to see objects, pedestrians, or other vehicles at night is a necessary precursor to determining if that driver could have avoided a nighttime crash. The visibility of an object at night is largely due to the luminance contrast between the object and its background. This difference depends on many factors, one of which is the amount of illumination produced by a vehicle’s headlamps. This paper focuses on a method for digitally modeling a vehicle headlamp, such that the illumination produced by the headlamps can be evaluated. The paper introduces the underlying concepts and a methodology for simulating, in a computer environment, a high-beam headlamp using a computer generated light cluster. In addition, the results of using this methodology are evaluated by comparing light values measured for a real headlamp to a simulated headlamp.