Patent ID: 7212207

Claim:
A computer implemented method for presenting lighting characteristics associated with a display object in real-time during a video presentation through a single graphics processing unit, comprising: (a) executing a ray tracing algorithm through a stream processor, the executing including; (i) generating a ray associated with a point on the display object toward a light source using a biased approximator for determining a direct illumination component toward a light source; (b) determining an approximation of a transfer function component using at least one basis function, the determining identifies whether the ray is within a view plane of the light source, the approximation of the transfer function component producing lighting characteristics data is stored along with texture map data, the approximation corresponding to a center point of a texel associated with a corresponding point on the display object, and storing coefficients resulting from the approximation, the coefficients represent surface reflectance, and wherein conducting the approximation corresponding to the center point of the texel eliminates calculation of the transfer function component at corners of triangles, thus avoiding interpolation of triangle vertices; (c) multiplying the coefficients that are stored by the direct illumination component to define approximated lighting for the point on the display object; and (d) rendering the approximated lighting for the point of the display object on a screen.