Patent ID: 7068274

Claim:
A method for animating a 3D physical object, comprising: acquiring a 3D graphics model of the 3D physical object: editing the 3D graphics model with graphics authoring tools to reflect a desired appearance of the 3D physical object; rendering the virtual 3D graphics model as an image considering a user location with respect to the 3D physical object and a location of a virtual light; correcting intensity values of the image according to an orientation of a surface of the object and a radiance at the surface to generate a corrected image; and illuminating the 3D physical object with the corrected image to give the 3D physical object the desired appearance under the virtual light when viewed from the user location, wherein the illuminating further comprises: rendering the virtual 3D graphics model as plurality of images parallel considering the user location and the location of the virtual light; correcting intensity values of each of the plurality of the plurality of images according to the orientation of the surface of the object and the radiance at the surface to generate a corresponding corrected image for each image of the plurality of images; and illuminating the 3D physical object with the corrected plurality of images in parallel to give the 3D physical object the desired appearance under the virtual light when viewed from multiple user locations.