With all the mods out there that alter lighting on interiors and exteriors it is becoming more common to find darkness in the game. There are even mods out there that improve the AI for detecting sneaking PC -http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23353/?. With these mods in play wouldnt it be nice to have a meter that tells you how enshrouded in the shadows you are?

Old games like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg61X2Lg-qQ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUOcQucsMpk come to mind. These games had you pay attention to these meters to better understand how hidden you were.

It came to my attention with http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52239/? that there is a way to calculate how dark your surroundings are as in the MCM it tells you what your light level is. Would it not be possible to create a HUD Widget that displays that information in real time to the player? Perhaps like in Thief, a gem that grows whiter or blacker as you move from light to shadow, or a bar with one end white that fades to black as it reaches the other end with a indicator that traverses it to tell you your light level.

Rather than adding another meter to a somewhat clutter free screen, why not modify the sneak eye Crosshair so it also can indicate how well shrouded you are?

That could also work. I use Less Intrusive HUD II which has an option to replace the sneak eye with a bar that fills with your detection level. So maybe add something that would work alongside the sneak detection meter might work too. Bar or Gem was the first thing that came to mind... Perhaps have something that appears only when sneaking?

Yeah..something like that could work!

The more I think about this though, the more superfluous it seems,though. Darkness is darkness, and they can either see you or they can't.

Do you really need a meter to tell you how dark an area is?

Not really, but being able to judge how dark the area is in relation to you will allow you to better determine how well you are hidden and reduce you risk of being caught. Especially with mods that Improve the AI to take those conditions into consideration, like the one I mentioned above.