Patent ID: 8432802

Claim:
A method in combination with an application running on a computing device that renders a visual simulation to a display of the computing device, the application rendering the simulation as a series of visual frames according to a plurality of calls, the method for encapsulating a particular frame n of the simulation for re-rendering comprising steps of: receiving an identification of the frame n to be captured; creating a run file for the identified frame n to re-render the frame n independent from the application; capturing, for the frame n, a call issued in connection with the frame n by the application; determining, with regard to the issued call, an object upon which the issued call is made; determining a creating call to create the object, comprising determining that state information used to create the object is not found in another object created in connection with the frame n, the state information comprising a texture map, a vertex buffer, or a pixel shader; determining a first populating call used to populate the object, the first populating call being stored in a first frame of frames 1 to n- 1 ; determining a second populating call used to populate the object, the second populating call being stored in a second frame of frames 1 to n- 1 ; and in response to determining that a result of processing the second populating call overwrites a result of processing the first populating call, writing the frame n, the issued call, the creating call, and the second populating call into the run file without writing the first populating call into the run file, such that executing the run file reconstructs or replays the frame n without executing any of frames 1 to n- 1 .