"alpha channel" meaning in All languages combined

See alpha channel on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: alpha channels [plural]
Etymology: Coined by Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull in the 1970s. Smith writes: "We called it that because of the classic linear interpolation formula αA+(1-α)B that uses the Greek letter α (alpha) to control the amount of interpolation between, in this case, two images A and B". That is, when compositing image A atop image B, the value of α in the formula is A's alpha channel. Head templates: {{en-noun}} alpha channel (plural alpha channels)
  1. (computer graphics) A numerical value specifying a level of translucency to be applied to a colour. Wikipedia link: Alvy Ray Smith, Ed Catmull, alpha channel Categories (topical): Computer graphics Translations (numeric value): alfakanava (Finnish), canal alfa [masculine] (Portuguese)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull in the 1970s. Smith writes: \"We called it that because of the classic linear interpolation formula αA+(1-α)B that uses the Greek letter α (alpha) to control the amount of interpolation between, in this case, two images A and B\". That is, when compositing image A atop image B, the value of α in the formula is A's alpha channel.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "alpha channels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "alpha channel (plural alpha channels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
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          "orig": "en:Computer graphics",
          "parents": [
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            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A numerical value specifying a level of translucency to be applied to a colour."
      ],
      "id": "en-alpha_channel-en-noun-T80fpKh8",
      "links": [
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "translucency",
          "translucency"
        ],
        [
          "colour",
          "colour"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(computer graphics) A numerical value specifying a level of translucency to be applied to a colour."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computer-graphics",
        "computing",
        "engineering",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "numeric value",
          "word": "alfakanava"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "numeric value",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "canal alfa"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Alvy Ray Smith",
        "Ed Catmull",
        "alpha channel"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "alpha channel"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull in the 1970s. Smith writes: \"We called it that because of the classic linear interpolation formula αA+(1-α)B that uses the Greek letter α (alpha) to control the amount of interpolation between, in this case, two images A and B\". That is, when compositing image A atop image B, the value of α in the formula is A's alpha channel.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "alpha channels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
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      ],
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        ],
        [
          "numerical",
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "translucency",
          "translucency"
        ],
        [
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(computer graphics) A numerical value specifying a level of translucency to be applied to a colour."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computer-graphics",
        "computing",
        "engineering",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
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        "Ed Catmull",
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      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "numeric value",
      "word": "alfakanava"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "numeric value",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "canal alfa"
    }
  ],
  "word": "alpha channel"
}

Download raw JSONL data for alpha channel meaning in All languages combined (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (1c4b89b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.