Motius Glossary

The Motius Literary Index provides an alphabetical overview of the terms we use on our website.

Z

Z-Buffer

Z-buffer, also known as depth buffer, is a computer graphics technique used to manage the depth information of objects in a 3D scene. It is a fundamental method in rendering 3D graphics, particularly for hidden surface removal and achieving realistic visuals. The Z-buffer works by associating a depth value (Z-coordinate) with each pixel in the 2D screen space. When rendering a 3D scene, each object's depth value is compared with the existing value in the Z-buffer for that pixel.