1. A method of representing and rendering graphical objects, the method comprising: separating information for rendering a graphical object into a plurality of sets defining attributes of the graphical object, the graphical object configured to render within a local graphics context of a layer; creating the layer at a particular position of a viewport having a global graphics context defining a global coordinate frame; translating and scaling the local graphics context to match the global graphics context; and rendering the graphical object at the particular position of the viewport within the layer using the global coordinate frame.