1. A method of modeling an environment containing a collection of items, said method comprising: providing an environmental hierarchy describing a modeled environment; providing a product catalog that includes data describing a plurality of items that may be utilized to populate the modeled environment; providing a configuration library that includes data describing a spatial relationship between first and second items among said plurality of items in said product catalog; and permitting population of said modeled environment by storing, in a database, data representative of the spatial relationship between said environmental hierarchy and a collection of items including said first item.