COMPOSITE USER INTERFACE

1 . A system for displaying information, comprising:

a central processing unit, the central processing unit receiving real-time image data consisting of at least one of waveform and picture data, and web input data and producing a first graphics layer of web data, a second graphics layer of graticule data, and a third graphics layer of real-time data;

a memory connected to the central processing unit to store the first, second and third graphics layers;

a graphics processor to retrieve the first, second and third graphics layers from the memory and to generate a display window; and

a display device to display the display window.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphics processor comprises an array of texture processing elements.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the central processing unit receives a frame data signal.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the frame data signal consists of at least one of a frame rate, frame number and a scan type.

5 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a web developer front end connected to the central processing unit.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphics processing unit further comprises a fragment shader.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphics processing unit further comprises a rasterizer.

8 . A method of combining different types of display data, comprising:

receiving, at a central processing unit, web data and real-time image data consisting of at least one of waveform and picture data;

generating, by the central processing unit, a first graphics layer of web data from the web data, a second graphics layer of graticule data; and a third layer of real-time data;

storing the first, second, and third graphics layers in memory;

retrieving, with a graphics processing unit, the first, second and third graphics layers from memory; and

producing, with the graphics processing unit, a composite display window of the first, second and third graphics layers.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein receiving the web based user interface data comprises receiving user interface data from a web based user interface.

10 . The method of claim 8 , wherein receiving the real-time image data comprises receiving real-time image data from a piece of monitoring equipment.

11 . The method of claim 8 , wherein producing the composite display window includes performing frame rate conversion.

12 . The method of claim 8 , wherein producing the composite display window includes rasterizing the display window.

13 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

receiving the real-time data at the central processing unit;

receiving a frame data signal at the central processing unit;

loading an element of a two-dimensional texture array in the graphics processing unit with the graphics data;

making an index identifying the element available to the graphics processing unit; and

sampling, with the graphics processing unit, the element identifying by the index and passing it to a rasterizing.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein frame data signal identifies the real-time data as progressive scan data.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein sampling comprises sampling the data with the fragment shader.

16 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the frame data signal identifies the real-time data as interlaced scan data.

17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein making an index identifying the element available further comprises determining if the index is even or odd.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the sampling repeats sampling of an element if the index is odd.

19 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the sampling samples the successive element if the index is even.