1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system for displaying images to a user and, more particularly, to a system compositing images from multiple, different applications.
2. Related Art
Devices that display images are used in a wide range of applications. MP3 players may display images of an artist and/or album artwork associated with its stored media content. Video players may display streaming video from a memory storage device, a private network, and/or the Internet. Cellular phones may display streaming video from a memory storage device, a private network, the Internet, and/or another cellular phone subscriber.
The user may be provided with an interface for interacting with the device. The interface may include a hardwired interface and/or a virtual interface. Hardwired interfaces may include pushbutton switches, rotary switches/potentiometers, sliders, and other mechanical based items. Virtual interfaces may be implemented using virtual buttons, virtual sliders, virtual rotator controls, function identifiers, and other visual elements on a display, such as a touchscreen display. In a combined interface, function identifiers may be placed on a display adjacent corresponding mechanical based items, such as switches.
The development of a virtual interface and/or display may become complicated when the interface must display an image and/or images from different applications. Still images and/or video images may be integrated with one another in a single application package for playback. This approach, however, limits still images and/or video playback to the images and/or video integrated with the application. Other approaches to combining images and/or video images may be complicated and require extensive use of a non-standard virtual interface development environment.