Patent ID: 8077183

Claim:
A method of visualizing a computer graphics scene, the method comprising: receiving a first computer graphics variable defined with respect to an input variable, wherein the first computer graphics variable includes authored values and generated values and wherein the generated values are derived from the authored values; receiving an input variable value associated with one of the generated values of the first computer graphics variable; determining a state of a stepmode visualization; in response to the determination that the state of the stepmode visualization is inactive, providing the associated one of the generated values of the first computer graphics variable to a computer graphics function adapted to specify a first attribute of a computer graphics scene; in response to the determination that the state of the stepmode visualization is active, overriding the associated one of the generated values of the first computer graphics variable with one of the authored values of the first computer graphics variables; in response to the determination that the state of the stepmode visualization is active, providing the overriding authored value of the first computer graphics variable to the computer graphics function adapted to specify an attribute of a computer graphics scene; and displaying an image of the computer graphics scene determined from at least the first attribute using a computer system including a display device.