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perspective divide
The step that makes far-away 3D things look smaller by dividing each point's coordinates by its distance value.
After 3D geometry is projected, each point has four coordinates (x, y, z, w) where w encodes depth. Dividing x, y, and z by w produces normalized device coordinates that fit a fixed cube, and because w grows with distance, this division is exactly what shrinks distant objects to create perspective. It's a fixed, automatic stage that happens between the vertex shader and the rasterizer.
See also
- pipelineThe ordered assembly line of stages a GPU runs to turn 3D geometry into the colored pixels on screen.
- rasterizerThe GPU component that turns geometric shapes into the actual grid of pixels that fill them.
- perspective-correct interpolationBlending values like color or texture across a triangle in a way that respects 3D depth, so surfaces don't look warped.