Lumest

Lumest is a term used to describe an open-standard framework for luminance data exchange and analysis. It is intended to unify how brightness, glare, and color temperature are measured and reported across display devices, cameras, and lighting systems. The goal is to enable consistent perceptual brightness assessments across platforms.

Core concepts include a luminance model, calibration profiles, and an extensible API. The model defines units such as candelas per square meter, perceptual brightness scales, and metering modes. The framework provides plug-in interfaces for sensors, displays, and rendering pipelines, allowing developers to implement custom estimators and calibrators.

History and status: Lumest originated in collaborative discussions among researchers and industry partners in the early 2020s as a proposal for interoperability in lighting and imaging workflows. It has seen several open-source prototypes and demonstrations, but no universal standard yet exists. Adoption varies by sector and ecosystem.

Formats and protocols: Lumest specifies a JSON-based data schema for human-readable interchange and a compact binary encoding for performance-critical pipelines. Data can be transmitted over common transport layers such as HTTP, WebSocket, or messaging protocols used in lighting and IoT environments.

Applications: The framework is used in display calibration, camera metering, lighting design, and smart lighting control to compare luminance characteristics across devices and environments. It supports runtime calibration, historical logging, and perceptual brightness analysis.

See also: Luminance, Color management, Display calibration, HDR, DMX, MQTT.