Hi. I hope this is the right place to ask this question. IBL lights are a must for quality renders in Poser and i"m trying to understand precisely how they work. I hope this isn't a stupid question.

 I've placed an IBl light with an image map in a scene. I added a ball that has reflections on. Why isn't the ibl light reflected in the ball. The other props and characters are reflected on the ball. 

As i see it, the IBL light is a dome light that surrounds the scene and "sends" the image of the image map onto the scene from all directions. I know it's different from a spot light. An image map attached to a spot does send the  image onto the scene in a direct manner coming from the source of the light. I expected the IBL to send the map in a spherical manner.  It sure doesn't seem to work that way. Is it because it is an infinite light that is too far away to send a precise image? The colors are sent. I guess it's because of the diffuse aspect of the IBL setting. What does the diffuse mean in reference to the ibl lighting? Why don't I see the colors in the 100% reflective ball? On a non-reflective ball, you can see the color variations on the shading.

The upshot of this is,is that the resolution of the image map should not mean very much. If only diffuse color information is being sent, the image map can be very low res. the only reason to use HDR images therefore is for the greater color depth. I really don't see the point of the hdr maps anyway as the effects of the additional colors are very, very subtle. I can't believe that the difference is visible.

I'm sure there's a simple answer and i'm missing something obvious. Help would be appreciated

Mike