Patent ID: 7262770

Claim:
A method performed by a computer for real-time rendering of computer graphics images of a glossy surface on a geometrically modeled object, the method comprising: projecting radiance under a lighting environment to a spherical harmonic basis to produce a lighting coefficient vector for at least one location of the modeled object; determining exiting radiance for a viewing direction from at least one location on the glossy surface as a function of the lighting coefficient vector, a pre-computed radiance transfer matrix data representing radiance response including global transport effects of the glossy surface at the at least one location to source light under a reference low-frequency lighting environment, and a bi-directional reflectance distribution function for the at least one location; calculating shading of the glossy surface of the modeled object at the at least one location; and presenting an image of the glossy surface of the modeled object with the shading on an image output device for viewing by a user; wherein determining exiting radiance for a viewing direction comprises: performing a matrix-vector multiplication of the lighting coefficient vector with a pre-computed radiance transfer matrix for at least one location on the glossy surface, the pre-computed radiance transfer matrix representing radiance response including global transport effects of the glossy surface at the at least one location to source light under the reference low-frequency lighting environment; convolving a resulting product of the matrix-vector multiplication with a bi-directional reflectance distribution function for the location on the glossy surface of the modeled object; and evaluating a result of the convolving for a viewing direction.