Method and apparatus for visualizing a quantity of a material used in a physical object having a plurality of physical elements

An apparatus for visualizing a quantity of a material used in a building having a plurality of physical elements in connection with designing the building to comply with an environmental design certification material composition requirement, comprising:

• means for concurrently displaying a visual representation of a model of the building, a data category having a plurality of data points, and a display feature presenting graphical information quantifying a material composition of at least one of the physical elements of the building associated with the environmental design material composition requirement according to a user-selected one of the plurality of data points on a display coupled to a computer;
• means for accepting a selection of the presented graphical information in the computer from the user;
• means for filtering the model according to the selected presented graphical information to highlight the physical element of the building associated with the selected presented graphical information;
• and
• means for displaying a visual representation of the filtered model.

A computer system for visualizing a quantity of a material used in a building having a plurality of physical elements in connection with designing the building to comply with an environmental design material composition requirement, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing one or more instructions for performing a computer program modeling the physical object and for presenting the visualized quantity of material used in the physical object, wherein the instructions comprise instructions for performing steps comprising the steps of:
• concurrently displaying a visual representation of a model of the building, a data category having a plurality of data points, and a display feature presenting graphical information quantifying a material composition of at least one of the physical elements of the building on a display coupled to a computer, wherein the quantified material composition is associated with the environmental design material composition requirement;
• accepting a selection of the presented graphical information in the computer from the user;
• filtering the model according to the selected presented graphical information to highlight the physical element of the building associated with the selected presented graphical information;
• and
• displaying a visual representation of the filtered model.