ShadowLight-Mirage was architected with the designer in mind. The user interface was modeled after the real world to provide an extremely intuitive interaction paradigm, decreasing the learning curve and increasing productivity. Extensions to this direct-manipulative environment allow the designer to augment the design process on the fly to incorporate or eliminate constraints as needed. The entire process of conception is thus inspired by the unique characteristics of each particular endeavor.

Design in ShadowLight-Mirage is based around the concept of a world. A world is an infinitely bounded space that serves as the medium in which the designer composes. Within this world, shapes may be drawn, manipulated, bestowed with color or texture, grouped, anchored, copied, deleted, or even made partially transparent. Designs may be scattered throughout space or expand to fill it. ShadowLight encourages the notion of a spatial sketch, where intuition and conception are intimately linked and the focus is on the realization of a concept, rather than the manifestation of physical constraints. For example, gravity may be ignored to focus on the essence of a sculpture, allowing it to be expressed in its purest form, and permitting the effects of gravity to be evaluated as a separate stage. Thus, the artist’s vision is effectively liberated from the encumbrances of reality, allowing physical constraints to be incorporated after the design stage, rather than hindering its manifestation.

The designer navigates about his or her world through the modality of flight. This is slightly different than the technique employed by most workstation-based modeling or drawing software applications. In those applications, the user stays at a fixed location and translates or rotates the world about that location. In ShadowLight, the world stays fixed and the user flies around the space, in a magic carpet metaphor. To move in a particular direction, the user simply points the wand in the direction of desired travel and pushes forward on the joystick. The further forward the joystick is pushed, the greater the velocity of travel. To rotate right or left, the user has simply to push the joystick right or left. By adjusting the direction of the wand and force on the joystick, extremely intricate paths of flight may be achieved.