'What are S/P Ratios?'
SP Ratios – what is an SP Ratio?
First things first, SP stands for Scotopic/Photopic. If you’re new to the industry or are not that involved you may not know what Scotopic and Photopic is.
Scotopic:
This relates to vision in a dim light, for example at night. The word scotopic originates from the greek word skotos – which means darkness. Your eyes use mainly your rods (more on these in a sec) to see in low light conditions.
Photopic:
This is the opposite of scotopic – vision in day light conditions or under bright lights and your eyes use the cones rather than the rods to see in these conditions.
We have another Opic to consider and that is Mesopic. This is a combination of both Scotopic and Photopic vision in dark low light conditions – not daylight and not complete darkness. You could consider most highway lighting to fall within this type of vision.
How does the SP ratio affect lighting design?
Lamps / light sources are assigned an SP ratio - this ratio is a calculation of the Scotopic lumens the lamp produces divided by the Photopic lumens. If the ratio is 1 the light source performs just as good under Scotopic 