Abstract: A graphics editor generates an Appearance Construction Graph (ACG) which represents an image formation process as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). The ACG image transformation operations (transforms), and outputs (viewable images--sinks) which can be displayed, for example, in a window of a display screen, and manipulated to construct and edit complex images. Accordingly, the displayed ACG is a user interface that permits complex graphics images to be constructed in a straightforward manner, and thus easily understood and manipulated (edited) by an operator. The nodes in the ACG are selectively interconnected by links (edges). The complex image represented by the ACG can be constructed and displayed in a viewer window on the display screen by "running" the ACG. The graphics editor "runs" the ACG by performing operations on the image fragments as defined by the interconnected nodes of the ACG.