Laser Cut Layered Gels for Lighting Design

Recent advancements in lighting design have focused on the visualization and simulation of programmable LED lighting fixtures. However, single-bulb conventional fixtures alongside subtractive color filter gels are still widely used in many art galleries and installations, photography studios, and experimental theatres due to their low cost and existing prevalence in industry. We introduce a novel approach to creating lighting effects for single-bulb fixtures with gels, which enables designers to quickly and inexpensively produce complex, multi-colored effects approximating a target digital image. Our system uses a grid-based approach which cuts small openings in different colored gels and layers them together, forming color combinations when lit. Our work expands the design space of lighting gels with a precise and expressive method, enabling designers to experiment with novel lighting effects through an iterative personal fabrication process.