Several techniques for 3-D display have been evaluated. A technique using the overlay of intensity-graded image planes is selected. In the system implemented, contours of soft tissue on multiple sectional slices are overlaid and displayed with graded intensity levels. The shape and the interior of the contour change depends on the viewing angle. Functions of this system such as 3-D scanning, binary thresholding, compression, run length coding and decoding, and 3-D coordinate generation are implemented by using high-speed hardware and a microprocessor.