A proposal for a standard file format for the electronic transfer of spectral data and related information

This article proposes a standard file format for the electronic transfer of five classes of spectral data: 1) spectral power distributions (SPDs) from commercial light sources, 2) SPDs from theoretical illuminants, 3) spectral reflectance distributions, 4) spectral transmittance distributions, and 5) spectral weighting functions. The file structure is adapted from ANSI/IESNA LM-63–02, which is employed for the electronic transfer of luminaire photometric data. Use of the proposed file format, or one similar, would aid communication between manufacturers, researchers, designers, and software developers and would facilitate the creation of spectrally-based lighting software.