Patent ID: 6903753

Claim:
In a system including a display device for displaying an image, the image having a plurality of sources, a method for compositing the image, the method comprising the acts of: dividing the image into slices, each slice including at least one line; dividing each line in each slice into at least one span, wherein each span has at least one associated source included in the plurality of sources and each span in each slice has the same at least one associated source; for each span in each line, reading data directly from the associated source without reading the data as part of a composite image from a buffer; identifying portions of the image that are opaque and portions of the image that are translucent; for each portion of the image that is translucent, reading, blending and displaying the data from the sources corresponding to the translucent portion; for each portion of the image that is opaque, reading only from the sources that correspond to the opaque portion and that would be visible within the opaque portion during display of the image, and without reading data from any sources that would otherwise be obscured in the opaque portion during display of the image.