High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. It is one solution to the visibility problem, which is the problem of deciding which elements of a rendered scene are visible, and which are hidden. The painter`s algorithm is another common solution which, though less efficient, can also handle non-opaque scene elements. Z-buffering is also known as depth buffering.