Baseball Lighting Design in AutoCAD

[RadiantRiddle]

Hello everyone,

I’m in the middle of designing the lighting for a baseball field and could use some feedback on a specific aspect of the layout. Here’s a scene I’ve set up in AutoCAD for reference.

Scene:

I’ve created a baseball field in AutoCAD with the following features:

A full-sized diamond with accurate measurements for the infield, outfield, and foul lines.

Four corner light poles placed at the edges of the field, each equipped with LED floodlights for energy efficiency.

The light poles are 50 feet high, and the fixtures are aimed to minimize shadows on key areas like the pitcher’s mound and batter’s box.

Issue:

While the light poles are positioned to cover the majority of the field, I’m noticing that the light distribution isn’t as uniform as I’d like. The infield seems to have adequate brightness, but the outfield, especially the deep areas, is slightly under-lit. Additionally, there’s some spillover around the stadium seating area that I’d prefer to avoid.

Question:

What changes would you recommend to improve light distribution across the outfield while minimizing spillover around the stadium seating?

Would moving the light poles or changing their angle provide a better result, or is there another approach I should consider for even coverage?

I’m excited to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

 

[CyberAngel]

My first impulse is to change the angles of the lights so that they all point to the center of the field. That might involve spacing them further apart. That should reduce the spillover, at least. I'm not sure how that would help with the outfield.

 

My other idea is to add a third pylon on each side. I'm sure that would increase the cost significantly, but each one would be shorter and have a smaller bank of lights, and you'd get more-even coverage.

[BIGAL]

There is software that draws lighting diagrams looking at a reflective value on say the ground these show the brightness at a point. a bit like a contour map of brightness. Were I worked we did a few lighting involved projects but we shopped out the light design. I would be very careful of using ACAD "LIGHTS" it will give you an idea but for a project like this need it properly analyzed. Very, very expensive if you get it wrong.

 

Just a funny comment about sports ground lights, many years ago they built a major football stadium, it had multi lights for night games, so the powers to be decided it would be a good idea to turn on all the tower lights at the one time in a blaze of glory, well that lasted a couple of seconds, they sucked that much power they blacked out the entire neighborhood for 4 hours. Any one from Melbourne will know about Waverly stadium. Yes they did have night games turning on small banks one at a time.

[AONE_LED]

Corner-only poles are the main reason for uneven outfield light and spill. Sports fields are normally lit from four poles placed outside the foul lines, not at the diamond corners, or from six to eight poles around the perimeter. Use narrow-beam floodlights with sharp cut-off optics for the deep outfield, aimed at roughly 20 to 30 degrees below horizontal, and wide-beam units for the infield. Higher aiming angles throw light into the stands, so keep tilt moderate and add external louvres or shields on the fixtures facing the seating. Typical targets are about 500 to 750 lux infield and 300 to 500 lux outfield, with uniformity (min/avg) of 0.5 or better. Verify with a point-by-point grid calculation using IES files before finalising pole positions, because AutoCAD renders cannot give reliable lux values.

[indiancad]

On 11/7/2024 at 1:36 PM, RadiantRiddle said:

Hello everyone,

I’m in the middle of designing the lighting for a baseball field and could use some feedback on a specific aspect of the layout. Here’s a scene I’ve set up in AutoCAD for reference.

Scene:

I’ve created a baseball field in AutoCAD with the following features:

A full-sized diamond with accurate measurements for the infield, outfield, and foul lines.

Four corner light poles placed at the edges of the field, each equipped with LED floodlights for energy efficiency.

The light poles are 50 feet high, and the fixtures are aimed to minimize shadows on key areas like the pitcher’s mound and batter’s box.

LearnPhysics

 

Issue:

While the light poles are positioned to cover the majority of the field, I’m noticing that the light distribution isn’t as uniform as I’d like. The infield seems to have adequate brightness, but the outfield, especially the deep areas, is slightly under-lit. Additionally, there’s some spillover around the stadium seating area that I’d prefer to avoid.

Question:

What changes would you recommend to improve light distribution across the outfield while minimizing spillover around the stadium seating?

Would moving the light poles or changing their angle provide a better result, or is there another approach I should consider for even coverage?

I’m excited to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

 

Four 50-foot corner poles may not provide uniform coverage, especially in the deep outfield. Use photometric simulation with actual LED IES files to optimise fixture angles, beam distribution, and mounting height. Asymmetric optics and glare shields can also reduce spillover toward the seating areas. Focus on uniform field illumination rather than simply increasing brightness.