A numerical method providing the optimal laser intensity profiles for a direct-drive inertial confinement fusion scheme has been developed. The method provides an alternative approach to phase-space optimization studies, which can prove computationally expensive. The method applies to a generic irradiation configuration characterized by an arbitrary number NBof laser beams provided that they irradiate the whole target surface, and thus goes beyond previous analyses limited to symmetric configurations. The calculated laser intensity profiles optimize the illumination of a spherical target.This paper focuses on description of the method, which uses two steps: first, the target irradiation is calculated for initial trial laser intensities, and then in a second step the optimal laser intensities are obtained by correcting the trial intensities using the calculated illumination. A limited number of example applications to direct drive on the Laser Mega Joule(LMJ) are described. A numerical method providing the optimal laser intensity profiles for a direct-drive inertial confinement fusion scheme has been developed. The method provides an alternative approach to phase-space optimization studies, which can prove computationally expensive. The method applies to a generic- by an arbitrary number NBof laser beams provided that they irradiate the whole target surface, and thus goes beyond previous analyzes limited to symmetric configurations. which calculated laser intensity profiles optimize the illumination of a spherical target. which paper focuses on description of the method, which uses two steps: first, the target irradiation is calculated for initial trial laser intensities, and then in a second step the optimal laser intensities are obtained by correcting the trial intensities using the calculated illumination. A limited number of example applications to direct drive on the Laser Mega Joule (LMJ) are described.