1. A method for partitioning a three-dimensional graphical environment for displaying representative images of objects in a database comprising: representing the database of objects with a hierarchical tree derived from object metadata; pre-assigning a predetermined parent node to an area corresponding to the undivided graphical environment; starting with the predetermined node, for each area corresponding to each parent node in the tree having at least two associated child nodes: recursively partitioning the area into a plurality of areas corresponding to each associated child node such that the areas are proportional to the weight of each child node.