Spherical Harmonics as a way of encoding spherical signals have their limitations. Recent results in linear algebra and cosmology have given us a toolkit for reevaluating bases on the sphere. This session will give you the background in Frame Theory and Spherical Quadrature necessary to understand and use Spherical Needlets as a replacement for SH in your graphics engines. Combining the best of orthonormal basis functions, spherical wavelets and radial basis functions into a single technique that gives you a basis family specifically designed for GPU implementation.