Longhorn introduces significant new graphics technology, currently known by its codename, "Avalon." Avalon renders an application's visual elements onto the screen using a much more sophisticated approach than Windows has previously used. In this article, I show how this new graphical composition model solves various limitations of Win32, what new user interface design techniques this enables, and what it means to developers.
Composition of Visual Elementsp
In computer graphics, composition is the process of combining multiple images into a single image. It can mean anything from the very simple process of showing two pictures next to each other right up to the sophisticated techniques used in the cinema industry, where each frame may be made up of hundreds of images combined using a wide range of visual effects.
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