Comparison of Depth Buffer Techniques for Large and Detailed 3D Scenes

Abstract

Large scale 3D scenes in applications like space simulations are often subject to depth buffer related issues and visual artefacts like Z-fighting and spatial jittering. These issues are primarily a result of indistinguishable depth buffer values. To mitigate these issues, many techniques have been developed over time to better distribute depth values over the clipping range. These techniques range from simple adjustments of the projection matrix to complex solutions like multistage rendering with layered depth buffers. This work presents, compares and evaluates commonly used approaches found in iterature and real world applications. An experiment is set up to compare the presented depth buffer techniques using the metric of minimum triangle separation (MTS). The gathered results are presented and evaluated, to give a good overview on which techniques are well suited for the use in applications with large scale 3D scenes.