Patent ID: 9536340
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: G06F,G06T

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method of controlling an architectural design environment in order to more efficiently render three-dimensional views of a user's design choices, the computer-implemented method being performed by one or more processors executing computer executable instructions for the computer-implemented method, and the computer-implemented method comprising: for each of a plurality of architectural design elements that are selectable for placement within a design space, storing in a reference library data that defines a plurality of physical factors used to define characteristics of each design element; for one or more of the architectural design elements, inputting to a prerendering module of a central processing unit (CPU) one or more positions and visual effects associated with the one or more positions, and the prerendering module of the CPU generating for each of the one or more positions a 3-D view containing visual effects, wherein each said 3-D view is stored in a corresponding template for a given position so that 3-D views containing visual effects are rendered by the CPU and stored for later retrieval by a graphics processing unit (GPU), and wherein each template comprises an accessible data file stored in a visual effects data store; displaying the design space on a computerized display; selecting an architectural design element and retrieving from the reference library the data that defines physical factors for the selected architectural design element; at an object data component, receiving from a user one or more user inputs representing design choices regarding the selected architectural design element, the one or more user inputs defining attributes associated with the design choices, and the object data component combining the attributes associated with the design choices with the selected architectural design element; inputting to a graphical processing engine of the GPU the graphical processing engine of the GPU processing the object data to prepare a rendering of the object data for the selected architectural design element; preparing, with the graphical processing engine, a combined data stream comprised of the processed object data for the selected architectural design element and the input template of the 3-D view retrieved from the visual effects store corresponding to the given position for the selected architectural design element, wherein the graphical processing engine of the GPU is only required to process the object data but not the pre-rendered 3-D view retrieved from the visual effects store; the graphical processing engine of the GPU generating pixel information from the combined data stream; and sending the pixel information to the computerized display for display in the generated design space.