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sphericalHarmonicsCoefficients

Data containing the spherical harmonics coefficients for the light.

Declaration

var sphericalHarmonicsCoefficients: Data? { get }

Discussion

Spherical harmonic coefficients describe the distribution of light around a light source with less high-frequency detail than a cube map texture, but they can be used more efficiently in real-time rendering. Use the generateSphericalHarmonics(fromIrradiance:) method to create spherical harmonics data based on the light probe’s irradiance texture.

The data is an array of 32-bit floating-point values, containing three noninterleaved data sets corresponding to the red, green, and blue sets of coefficients. The array’s length is determined by the sphericalHarmonicsLevel property:

  • At level 0, the array has 1 coefficient (3 values).

  • At level 1, the array has 4 coefficients (3 sets of 4 values, 12 values total).

  • At level 2, the array has 9 coefficients (3 sets of 9 values, 27 values total).

  • At level 3, the array has 16 coefficients (3 sets of 16 values, 48 values total).

  • Spherical harmonics levels beyond 3 are not supported.

For example, the code below shows how to access the second coefficient at level 2.

See Also

Working with Spherical Harmonics