1. A method for summarizing a video spatially and temporally, comprising: specifying a spatial query for a video acquired of a scene by a camera, in which the spatial query specifies a spatially contiguous set of pixels within a particular frame of the video; specifying a temporal query for the video, in which the temporal query specifies a temporally contiguous set of pixels in multiple adjacent frames; selecting frames of the a video according to the spatial query and the temporal query; and compositing the selected frames into an image that represents spatial and temporal characteristics of the scene, in which the compositing is according to a predetermined order and predetermined opacities, in which the compositing is according to: ∑ i = 1 n ⁢ α i × i n = 1 , ⁢ and ⁢ ⁢ α i × i n = α j × j n ⁢ ⁢ for ⁢ ⁢ all ⁢ ⁢ i ≠ j , where α i is an opacity for an i th layer in the image, and n represents a number of selected images.