The
candela ( or ; symbol:
cd) is the
SI base unit of
luminous intensity; that is, luminous power per unit
solid angle emitted by a point light source in a particular direction. Luminous intensity is analogous to
radiant intensity, but instead of simply adding up the contributions of every
wavelength of light in the source's spectrum, the contribution of each wavelength is
weighted by the standard
luminosity function (a model of the sensitivity of the human eye to different wavelengths). A common
candle emits light with a luminous intensity of roughly one candela. If emission in some directions is blocked by an opaque barrier, the emission would still be approximately one candela in the directions that are not obscured.