Abstract: A method for generating electronic representations of animated images from stored image data elements with reduced computational requirements. The image data elements may be made available from one or more data base sources, and may be of any suitable form from which images can be computed. A first sequence of relatively low resolution frames are computed from the stored image data elements, this first sequence of frames representing animated images over a given time period. A second sequence of relatively high resolution frames are computed from the stored image data elements, this second sequence of frames representing the animated images over the given time period. The number of frames in the second sequence is less than the number of frames in the first sequence. Corresponding frames of the first and second sequences are combined to obtain output high resolution frames representative of the animated images over the given time period.