Background
Hidden surface determination is a process by which surfaces which should not be visible to the user (for example, because they lie behind opaque objects such as walls) are prevented from being rendered. Despite advances in hardware capability there is still a need for advanced rendering algorithms. The responsibility of a rendering engine is to allow for large world spaces and as the world’s size approaches infinity the engine should not slow down but remain at constant speed. Optimising this process relies on being able to ensure the diversion of as few resources as possible towards the rendering of surfaces that will not end up being rendered to the user.
There are many techniques for hidden surface determination. They are fundamentally an exercise in sorting, and usually vary in the order in which the sort is performed and how the problem is subdivided. Sorting large quantities of graphics primitives is usually done by divide and conquer.
Read more about this topic: Hidden Surface Determination
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