“Optical printing in computer animation” by Max and Blunden

The optical printer can be considered as an optical analog computer, which can perform geometric transformations and simple arithmetic operations on pictures very efficiently. The principles of operation of the printer are explained, and many of its applications to computer animation are listed and discussed briefly. Two techniques are discussed in detail: the use of high contrast masks to suppress the bright spots where two lines of different colors cross, and the use of continuous tone masks and multiple exposures to create realistic transparency at low cost.

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