US Patent 9811936 Level-based data sharing for digital content production

Systems and methods for rendering three-dimensional images using a level graph are provided. The level graph is accessed, comprising a first node, a second node, and a target node. The second and target nodes are descendants of the first node. The first node comprises first scene description data, the second node comprises first variation data, and the target node comprises second variation data. The target node is selected for computation. Target node ancestors are determined. The first node and the second node are ancestors of the target node. A linearization of the ancestors is determined, comprising an order. A scene description is initialized using the first scene description data. The first variation is applied to the scene description, based on the linearization. The second variation is applied to the scene description to produce a final scene description. An image is rendered using the final scene description.