Control Room lighting

I believe this topic should really expand beyond lighting and monitor calibrtion. I believe those are just some of the elements of control room design.

A 2008 article in Control magazine titled "Fitting the Workplace to the Worker" includes wisdom from Ian Nimmo, founder of User Centered Design Services, and Lisa Garrison of Acuite, a company with extensive expertise in operator graphic designs.

I would encourage anyone evenly remotely involved in control room design to read my article and visit Ian's and Lisa's Web sites to gain a better understanding of control room design considerations.

Links are:
Article: http://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2008/276.html?page=full

Ian: http://www.mycontrolroom.com/site/

Lisa: http://www.acuite.com/

Best wishes,
Dave

I think the monitor calibration concept is a BIG DEAL. As someone who does a lot of color-correct work with photography and the like, I really think that it's important that the DCS monitors display the proper colors and that the brightness is properly calibrated for the control room lighting present, including dynamic brightness adjustment based on ambient lighting.

I might be jumping too far ahead of the game - I've seen many DCS's where the HMI is not even set at the native resolution of the monitors. I think it's important that those that are implementing DCS projects take the time to thoroughly consider the monitor hardware in the project HMI design.

There are couple of general issues that need to be done for proper lighting of a room that contains computer screens.
There should not be any direct lights, a light should reach the screen reflected not direct.Usually the operator rooms look directly to the process through a window, this window should have a anti reflect coating and people should see each other from both sides.(this is important for emergency conditions) Using a dimmer for ceiling lights is a good idea. (power for lighting and power for workstations should be from different sources and fuses). Pastel color walls are good as they don't reflect the light as much as the light color walls.Green color said to be relaxing for they eyes.
Besides these things LCD contrast, desk dimensions,operator chair, desk material are also important and mentioning all those on sales phase makes you different and friendly than others. For proffessionals there are some softwares on internet that calculates the required light,dimensions,etc..