Patent ID: 7034825

Claim:
A method for storing in a computer-readable database scene data comprising electronic visual object data defining visual objects each having associated therewith electronic data identifying a location of the visual object in a virtual space, said method comprising: a) determining from the electronic visual object data a number representing a count of the how many of the visual objects have locations within a cell in the virtual space; b) comparing said number of visual objects with a predetermined threshold subdivision value and/or a predetermined threshold multiple subdivision value; c) responsive to a determination that the number of visual objects in the cell exceeds the predetermined threshold subdivision value but not the predetermined threshold multiple subdivision value, performing a subdivision operation representing a partitioning of the cell in at least one dimension thereof into an integer subdivision number s of sub-cells that are equal in size to each other and together constitute the cell; d) responsive to a determination that the number of visual objects in the cell exceeds the predetermined threshold multiple subdivision value, performing a multiple subdivision operation representing a partitioning of the cell in at least one dimension thereof into a number of sub-cells, which number is an integral power, s n , of subdivision number s, said sub-cells being equal in size to each other and together constituting the cell; e) responsive to a determination that the number of visual objects in the cell does not exceed the predetermined threshold subdivision value, storing data identifying the visual objects in the cell in the database so that the visual object data of said visual Objects can be accessed by a computer based on coordinates identifying said cell; and f) repeating steps (a) to (d) for each of the sub-cells created in steps (c) Of (d), wherein each sub-cell becomes the cell in step (a) for which the number of visual objects is counted.