Compositing 3-D rendered images

The complexity of anti-aliased 3-D rendering systems can be controlled by using a tool-building approach like that of the UNIX™ text-processing tools. Such an approach requires a simple picture representation amenable to anti-aliasing that all rendering programs can produce, a compositing algorithm for that representation and a command language to piece together scenes. This paper advocates a representation that combines Porter and Duff's compositing algebra with a Z-buffer to provide simple anti-aliased 3-D compositing.