Patent ID: 8405657

Claim:
A method for displaying lighting values associated with a graphics model, the method comprising: generating a light meter on a surface associated with the graphics model, wherein the graphics model includes one or more graphics objects, and the light meter defines a set of points on the surface associated with the graphics model; generating a light meter object corresponding to the light meter; computing a lighting value for each point in the set of points based on at least one light source associated with the graphics model to generate a first set of computed lighting values; storing the first set of computed lighting values in the light meter object; rendering the graphics model, an overlay grid, and the first set of computed lighting values transmitted from the light meter object for display in a first display window, wherein the overlay grid and the first set of computed lighting values are superimposed on the graphics model, and each grid point in the overlay grid corresponds to a computed lighting value stored in the light meter object; rendering the graphics model to generate a high-quality colored image of the graphics model; computing lighting values for every pixel of the high-quality colored image based on the at least one light source to generate a second set of computed lighting values; superimposing a second overlay grid on the high-quality colored image to generate a display image, wherein the second overlay grid comprises a least a subset of the second set of computed lighting values, and wherein an area in the display image covered by the second overlay grid is shaded based on the second set of computed lighting values; and converting the display image to a JPEG-formatted image for display in a second display window.