The terms defined in this section are used consistently throughout this
Specification and may be used with or without capitalization.
-
Accessible (Descriptor Binding)
-
A descriptor binding is accessible to a shader stage if that stage is
included in the
stageFlags
of the descriptor binding.
Descriptors using that binding can only be used by stages in which they
are accessible.
-
Acquire Operation (Resource)
-
An operation that acquires ownership of an image subresource or buffer
range.
-
Adjacent Vertex
-
A vertex in an adjacency primitive topology that is not part of a given
primitive, but is accessible in geometry shaders.
-
Aliased Range (Memory)
-
A range of a device memory allocation that is bound to multiple
resources simultaneously.
-
Allocation Scope
-
An association of a host memory allocation to a parent object or
command, where the allocation’s lifetime ends before or at the same time
as the parent object is freed or destroyed, or during the parent
command.
-
API Order
-
A set of ordering rules that govern how primitives in draw commands
affect the framebuffer.
-
Aspect (Image)
-
An image may contain multiple kinds, or aspects, of data for each
pixel, where each aspect is used in a particular way by the pipeline and
may be stored differently or separately from other aspects.
For example, the color components of an image format make up the color
aspect of the image, and may be used as a framebuffer color attachment.
Some operations, like depth testing, operate only on specific aspects of
an image.
Others operations, like image/buffer copies, only operate on one aspect
at a time.
-
Attachment (Render Pass)
-
A zero-based integer index name used in render pass creation to refer to
a framebuffer attachment that is accessed by one or more subpasses.
The index also refers to an attachment description which includes
information about the properties of the image view that will later be
attached.
-
Availability Operation
-
An operation that causes the values generated by specified memory write
accesses to become available for future access.
-
Available
-
A state of values written to memory that allows them to be made visible.
-
Back-Facing
-
See Facingness.
-
Batch
-
A single structure submitted to a queue as part of a
queue submission command, describing a set
of queue operations to execute.
-
Backwards Compatibility
-
A given version of the API is backwards compatible with an earlier
version if an application, relying only on valid behavior and
functionality defined by the earlier specification, is able to correctly
run against each version without any modification.
This assumes no active attempt by that application to not run when it
detects a different version.
-
Full Compatibility
-
A given version of the API is fully compatible with another version if
an application, relying only on valid behavior and functionality defined
by either of those specifications, is able to correctly run against each
version without any modification.
This assumes no active attempt by that application to not run when it
detects a different version.
-
Binding (Memory)
-
An association established between a range of a resource object and a
range of a memory object.
These associations determine the memory locations affected by operations
performed on elements of a resource object.
Memory bindings are established using the
vkBindBufferMemory
command for non-sparse buffer objects, using the vkBindImageMemory
command for non-sparse image objects, and using the
vkQueueBindSparse
command for sparse resources.
-
Blend Constant
-
Four floating point (RGBA) values used as an input to blending.
-
Blending
-
Arithmetic operations between a fragment color value and a value in a
color attachment that produce a final color value to be written to the
attachment.
-
Buffer
-
A resource that represents a linear array of data in device memory.
Represented by a
VkBuffer
object.
-
Buffer View
-
An object that represents a range of a specific buffer, and state that
controls how the contents are interpreted.
Represented by a
VkBufferView
object.
-
Built-In Variable
-
A variable decorated in a shader, where the decoration makes the
variable take values provided by the execution environment or values
that are generated by fixed-function pipeline stages.
-
Built-In Interface Block
-
A block defined in a shader that contains only variables decorated with
built-in decorations, and is used to match against other shader stages.
-
Clip Coordinates
-
The homogeneous coordinate space that vertex positions (
Position
decoration) are written in by vertex processing stages.
-
Clip Distance
-
A built-in output from vertex processing stages that defines a clip
half-space against which the primitive is clipped.
-
Clip Volume
-
The intersection of the view volume with all clip half-spaces.
-
Color Attachment
-
A subpass attachment point, or image view, that is the target of
fragment color outputs and blending.
-
Color Renderable Format
-
A
VkFormat
where VK_FORMAT_FEATURE_COLOR_ATTACHMENT_BIT
is
set in the optimalTilingFeatures
or linearTilingFeatures
field of VkFormatProperties::optimalTilingFeatures returned by
vkGetPhysicalDeviceFormatProperties, depending on the tiling used.
-
Combined Image Sampler
-
A descriptor type that includes both a sampled image and a sampler.
-
Command Buffer
-
An object that records commands to be submitted to a queue.
Represented by a
VkCommandBuffer
object.
-
Command Pool
-
An object that command buffer memory is allocated from, and that owns
that memory.
Command pools aid multithreaded performance by enabling different
threads to use different allocators, without internal synchronization on
each use.
Represented by a
VkCommandPool
object.
-
Compatible Allocator
-
When allocators are compatible, allocations from each allocator can be
freed by the other allocator.
-
Compatible Image Formats
-
When formats are compatible, images created with one of the formats can
have image views created from it using any of the compatible formats.
-
Compatible Queues
-
Queues within a queue family.
Compatible queues have identical properties.
-
Component (Format)
-
A distinct part of a format.
Depth, stencil, and color channels (e.g. R, G, B, A), are all separate
components.
-
Compressed Texel Block
-
An element of an image having a block-compressed format, comprising a
rectangular block of texel values that are encoded as a single value in
memory.
Compressed texel blocks of a particular block-compressed format have a
corresponding width, height, and depth that define the dimensions of
these elements in units of texels, and a size in bytes of the encoding
in memory.
-
Cull Distance
-
A built-in output from vertex processing stages that defines a cull
half-space where the primitive is rejected if all vertices have a
negative value for the same cull distance.
-
Cull Volume
-
The intersection of the view volume with all cull half-spaces.
-
Decoration (SPIR-V)
-
Auxiliary information such as built-in variables, stream numbers,
invariance, interpolation type, relaxed precision, etc., added to
variables or structure-type members through decorations.
-
Depth/Stencil Attachment
-
A subpass attachment point, or image view, that is the target of depth
and/or stencil test operations and writes.
-
Depth/Stencil Format
-
A
VkFormat
that includes depth and/or stencil components.
-
Depth/Stencil Image (or ImageView)
-
A
VkImage
(or VkImageView
) with a depth/stencil format.
-
Derivative Group
-
A set of fragment shader invocations that cooperate to compute
derivatives, including implicit derivatives for sampled image
operations.
-
Descriptor
-
Information about a resource or resource view written into a descriptor
set that is used to access the resource or view from a shader.
-
Descriptor Binding
-
An entry in a descriptor set layout corresponding to zero or more
descriptors of a single descriptor type in a set.
Defined by a
VkDescriptorSetLayoutBinding
structure.
-
Descriptor Pool
-
An object that descriptor sets are allocated from, and that owns the
storage of those descriptor sets.
Descriptor pools aid multithreaded performance by enabling different
threads to use different allocators, without internal synchronization on
each use.
Represented by a
VkDescriptorPool
object.
-
Descriptor Set
-
An object that resource descriptors are written into via the API, and
that can be bound to a command buffer such that the descriptors
contained within it can be accessed from shaders.
Represented by a
VkDescriptorSet
object.
-
Descriptor Set Layout
-
An object that defines the set of resources (types and counts) and their
relative arrangement (in the binding namespace) within a descriptor set.
Used when allocating descriptor sets and when creating pipeline layouts.
Represented by a
VkDescriptorSetLayout
object.
-
Device
-
The processor(s) and execution environment that perform tasks requested
by the application via the Vulkan API.
-
Device Memory
-
Memory accessible to the device.
Represented by a
VkDeviceMemory
object.
-
Device-Level Object
-
Logical device objects and their child objects For example,
VkDevice
, VkQueue
, and VkCommandBuffer
objects are
device-level objects.
-
Device-Local Memory
-
Memory that is connected to the device, and may be more performant for
device access than host-local memory.
-
Direct Drawing Commands
-
Drawing commands that take all their parameters as direct arguments to
the command (and not sourced via structures in buffer memory as the
indirect drawing commands).
Includes
vkCmdDraw
, and vkCmdDrawIndexed
.
-
Dispatchable Handle
-
A handle of a pointer handle type which may be used by layers as part
of intercepting API commands.
The first argument to each Vulkan command is a dispatchable handle type.
-
Dispatching Commands
-
Commands that provoke work using a compute pipeline.
Includes
vkCmdDispatch
and vkCmdDispatchIndirect
.
-
Drawing Commands
-
Commands that provoke work using a graphics pipeline.
Includes
vkCmdDraw
, vkCmdDrawIndexed
,
vkCmdDrawIndirect
,
and vkCmdDrawIndexedIndirect
.
-
Duration (Command)
-
The duration of a Vulkan command refers to the interval between
calling the command and its return to the caller.
-
Dynamic Storage Buffer
-
A storage buffer whose offset is specified each time the storage buffer
is bound to a command buffer via a descriptor set.
-
Dynamic Uniform Buffer
-
A uniform buffer whose offset is specified each time the uniform buffer
is bound to a command buffer via a descriptor set.
-
Dynamically Uniform
-
See Dynamically Uniform in section 2.2 “Terms” of the
Khronos SPIR-V Specification.
-
Element Size
-
The size (in bytes) used to store one element of an uncompressed format
or the size (in bytes) used to store one block of a block-compressed
format.
-
Explicitly-Enabled Layer
-
A layer enabled by the application by adding it to the enabled layer
list in
vkCreateInstance
or vkCreateDevice
.
-
Event
-
A synchronization primitive that is signaled when execution of previous
commands complete through a specified set of pipeline stages.
Events can be waited on by the device and polled by the host.
Represented by a
VkEvent
object.
-
Executable State (Command Buffer)
-
A command buffer that has ended recording commands and can be executed.
See also Initial State and Recording State.
-
Execution Dependency
-
A dependency that guarantees that certain pipeline stages' work for a
first set of commands has completed execution before certain pipeline
stages' work for a second set of commands begins execution.
This is accomplished via pipeline barriers, subpass dependencies,
events, or implicit ordering operations.
-
Execution Dependency Chain
-
A sequence of execution dependencies that transitively act as a single
execution dependency.
-
Extension Scope
-
The set of objects and commands that can be affected by an extension.
Extensions are either device scope or instance scope.
-
External synchronization
-
A type of synchronization required of the application, where parameters
defined to be externally synchronized must not be used simultaneously
in multiple threads.
-
Facingness (Polygon)
-
A classification of a polygon as either front-facing or back-facing,
depending on the orientation (winding order) of its vertices.
-
Fence
-
A synchronization primitive that is signaled when a set of batches or
sparse binding operations complete execution on a queue.
Fences can be waited on by the host.
Represented by a
VkFence
object.
-
Flat Shading
-
A property of a vertex attribute that causes the value from a single
vertex (the provoking vertex) to be used for all vertices in a
primitive, and for interpolation of that attribute to return that single
value unaltered.
-
Fragment Input Attachment Interface
-
A fragment shader entry point’s variables with
UniformConstant
storage class and a decoration of InputAttachmentIndex
, which
receive values from input attachments.
-
Fragment Output Interface
-
A fragment shader entry point’s variables with
Output
storage
class, which output to color and/or depth/stencil attachments.
-
Framebuffer
-
A collection of image views and a set of dimensions that, in conjunction
with a render pass, define the inputs and outputs used by drawing
commands.
Represented by a
VkFramebuffer
object.
-
Framebuffer Attachment
-
One of the image views used in a framebuffer.
-
Framebuffer Coordinates
-
A coordinate system in which adjacent pixels' coordinates differ by 1 in
x and/or y, with (0,0) in the upper left corner and pixel centers
at half-integers.
-
Framebuffer-Space
-
Operating with respect to framebuffer coordinates.
-
Framebuffer-Local
-
A framebuffer-local dependency guarantees that only for a single
framebuffer region, the first set of operations happens-before the
second set of operations.
-
Framebuffer-Global
-
A framebuffer-global dependency guarantees that for all framebuffer
regions, the first set of operations happens-before the second set of
operations.
-
Framebuffer Region
-
A framebuffer region is a set of sample (x, y, layer, sample)
coordinates that is a subset of the entire framebuffer.
-
Front-Facing
-
See Facingness.
-
Global Workgroup
-
A collection of local workgroups dispatched by a single dispatch
command.
-
Handle
-
An opaque integer or pointer value used to refer to a Vulkan object.
Each object type has a unique handle type.
-
Happen-after
-
A transitive, irreflexive and antisymmetric ordering relation between
operations.
An execution dependency with a source of A and a destination of B
enforces that B happens-after A.
The inverse relation of happens-before.
-
Happen-before
-
A transitive, irreflexive and antisymmetric ordering relation between
operations.
An execution dependency with a source of A and a destination of B
enforces that A happens-before B.
The inverse relation of happens-after.
-
Helper Invocation
-
A fragment shader invocation that is created solely for the purposes of
evaluating derivatives for use in non-helper fragment shader
invocations, and which does not have side effects.
-
Host
-
The processor(s) and execution environment that the application runs on,
and that the Vulkan API is exposed on.
-
Host Memory
-
Memory not accessible to the device, used to store implementation data
structures.
-
Host-Accessible Subresource
-
A buffer, or a linear image subresource in either the
VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_PREINITIALIZED
or VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_GENERAL
layout.
Host-accessible subresources have a well-defined addressing scheme which
can be used by the host.
-
Host-Local Memory
-
Memory that is not local to the device, and may be less performant for
device access than device-local memory.
-
Host-Visible Memory
-
Device memory that can be mapped on the host and can be read and
written by the host.
-
Image
-
A resource that represents a multi-dimensional formatted interpretation
of device memory.
Represented by a
VkImage
object.
-
Image Subresource
-
A specific mipmap level and layer of an image.
-
Image Subresource Range
-
A set of image subresources that are contiguous mipmap levels and
layers.
-
Image View
-
An object that represents an image subresource range of a specific
image, and state that controls how the contents are interpreted.
Represented by a
VkImageView
object.
-
Immutable Sampler
-
A sampler descriptor provided at descriptor set layout creation time,
and that is used for that binding in all descriptor sets allocated from
the layout, and cannot be changed.
-
Implicitly-Enabled Layer
-
A layer enabled by a loader-defined mechanism outside the Vulkan API,
rather than explicitly by the application during instance or device
creation.
-
Index Buffer
-
A buffer bound via
vkCmdBindIndexBuffer
which is the source of
index values used to fetch vertex attributes for a
vkCmdDrawIndexed
or vkCmdDrawIndexedIndirect
command.
-
Indexed Drawing Commands
-
Drawing commands which use an index buffer as the source of index
values used to fetch vertex attributes for a drawing command.
Includes
vkCmdDrawIndexed
,
and vkCmdDrawIndexedIndirect
.
-
Indirect Commands
-
Drawing or dispatching commands that source some of their parameters
from structures in buffer memory.
Includes
vkCmdDrawIndirect
, vkCmdDrawIndexedIndirect
,
and vkCmdDispatchIndirect
.
-
Indirect Drawing Commands
-
Drawing commands that source some of their parameters from structures
in buffer memory.
Includes
vkCmdDrawIndirect
,
and vkCmdDrawIndexedIndirect
.
-
Initial State (Command Buffer)
-
A command buffer that has not begun recording commands.
See also Recorded State and Executable State.
-
Input Attachment
-
A descriptor type that represents an image view, and supports unfiltered
read-only access in a shader, only at the fragment’s location in the
view.
-
Instance
-
The top-level Vulkan object, which represents the application’s
connection to the implementation.
Represented by a
VkInstance
object.
-
Instance-Level Object
-
High-level Vulkan objects, which are not logical devices, nor children
of logical devices.
For example,
VkInstance
and VkPhysicalDevice
objects are
instance-level objects.
-
Internal Synchronization
-
A type of synchronization required of the implementation, where
parameters not defined to be externally synchronized may require
internal mutexing to avoid multithreaded race conditions.
-
Invocation (Shader)
-
A single execution of an entry point in a SPIR-V module.
For example, a single vertex’s execution of a vertex shader or a single
fragment’s execution of a fragment shader.
-
Invocation Group
-
A set of shader invocations that are executed in parallel and that must
execute the same control flow path in order for control flow to be
considered dynamically uniform.
-
Local Workgroup
-
A collection of compute shader invocations invoked by a single dispatch
command, which share shared memory and can synchronize with each other.
-
Logical Device
-
An object that represents the application’s interface to the physical
device.
The logical device is the parent of most Vulkan objects.
Represented by a
VkDevice
object.
-
Logical Operation
-
Bitwise operations between a fragment color value and a value in a color
attachment, that produce a final color value to be written to the
attachment.
-
Lost Device
-
A state that a logical device may be in as a result of hardware errors
or other exceptional conditions.
-
Mappable
-
See Host-Visible Memory.
-
Memory Dependency
A memory dependency is an execution dependency which includes
availability and visibility operations such that:
-
The first set of operations happens-before the availability operation
-
The availability operation happens-before the visibility operation
-
The visibility operation happens-before the second set of operations
-
Memory Heap
-
A region of memory from which device memory allocations can be made.
-
Memory Type
-
An index used to select a set of memory properties (e.g. mappable,
cached) for a device memory allocation.
-
Mip Tail Region
-
The set of mipmap levels of a sparse residency texture that are too
small to fill a sparse block, and that must all be bound to memory
collectively and opaquely.
-
Non-Dispatchable Handle
-
A handle of an integer handle type.
Handle values may not be unique, even for two objects of the same type.
-
Non-Indexed Drawing Commands
-
Drawing commands for which the vertex attributes are sourced in linear
order from the vertex input attributes for a drawing command (i.e. they
do not use an index buffer).
Includes
vkCmdDraw
,
and vkCmdDrawIndirect
.
-
Normalized
-
A value that is interpreted as being in the range [0,1] as a
result of being implicitly divided by some other value.
-
Normalized Device Coordinates
-
A coordinate space after perspective division is applied to clip
coordinates, and before the viewport transformation converts to
framebuffer coordinates.
-
Overlapped Range (Aliased Range)
-
The aliased range of a device memory allocation that intersects a given
image subresource of an image or range of a buffer.
-
Ownership (Resource)
-
If an entity (e.g. a queue family) has ownership of a resource, access
to that resource is well-defined for access by that entity.
-
Packed Format
-
A format whose components are stored as a single data element in memory,
with their relative locations defined within that element.
-
Physical Device
-
An object that represents a single device in the system.
Represented by a
VkPhysicalDevice
object.
-
Pipeline
-
An object that controls how graphics or compute work is executed on the
device.
A pipeline includes one or more shaders, as well as state controlling
any non-programmable stages of the pipeline.
Represented by a
VkPipeline
object.
-
Pipeline Barrier
-
An execution and/or memory dependency recorded as an explicit command in
a command buffer, that forms a dependency between the previous and
subsequent commands.
-
Pipeline Cache
-
An object that can be used to collect and retrieve information from
pipelines as they are created, and can be populated with previously
retrieved information in order to accelerate pipeline creation.
Represented by a
VkPipelineCache
object.
-
Pipeline Layout
-
An object that defines the set of resources (via a collection of
descriptor set layouts) and push constants used by pipelines that are
created using the layout.
Used when creating a pipeline and when binding descriptor sets and
setting push constant values.
Represented by a
VkPipelineLayout
object.
-
Pipeline Stage
-
A logically independent execution unit that performs some of the
operations defined by an action command.
-
Point Sampling (Rasterization)
-
A rule that determines whether a fragment sample location is covered by
a polygon primitive by testing whether the sample location is in the
interior of the polygon in framebuffer-space, or on the boundary of the
polygon according to the tie-breaking rules.
-
Preserve Attachment
-
One of a list of attachments in a subpass description that is not read
or written by the subpass, but that is read or written on earlier and
later subpasses and whose contents must be preserved through this
subpass.
-
Primary Command Buffer
-
A command buffer that can execute secondary command buffers, and can
be submitted directly to a queue.
-
Primitive Topology
-
State that controls how vertices are assembled into primitives, e.g. as
lists of triangles, strips of lines, etc..
-
Provoking Vertex
-
The vertex in a primitive from which flat shaded attribute values are
taken.
This is generally the “first” vertex in the primitive, and depends on
the primitive topology.
-
Push Constants
-
A small bank of values writable via the API and accessible in shaders.
Push constants allow the application to set values used in shaders
without creating buffers or modifying and binding descriptor sets for
each update.
-
Push Constant Interface
-
The set of variables with
PushConstant
storage class that are
statically used by a shader entry point, and which receive values from
push constant commands.
-
Query Pool
-
An object that contains a number of query entries and their associated
state and results.
Represented by a
VkQueryPool
object.
-
Queue
-
An object that executes command buffers and sparse binding operations on
a device.
Represented by a
VkQueue
object.
-
Queue Family
-
A set of queues that have common properties and support the same
functionality, as advertised in
VkQueueFamilyProperties
.
-
Queue Operation
-
A unit of work to be executed by a specific queue on a device, submitted
via a queue submission command.
Each queue submission command details the specific queue operations that
occur as a result of calling that command.
Queue operations typically include work that is specific to each
command, and synchronization tasks.
-
Queue Submission
-
Zero or more batches and an optional fence to be signaled, passed to a
command for execution on a queue.
See the Devices and Queues chapter for
more information.
-
Recording State (Command Buffer)
-
A command buffer that is ready to record commands.
See also Initial State and Executable State.
-
Release Operation (Resource)
-
An operation that releases ownership of an image subresource or buffer
range.
-
Render Pass
-
An object that represents a set of framebuffer attachments and phases of
rendering using those attachments.
Represented by a
VkRenderPass
object.
-
Render Pass Instance
-
A use of a render pass in a command buffer.
-
Reset (Command Buffer)
-
Resetting a command buffer discards any previously recorded commands and
puts a command buffer in the initial state.
-
Residency Code
-
An integer value returned by sparse image instructions, indicating
whether any sparse unbound texels were accessed.
-
Resolve Attachment
-
A subpass attachment point, or image view, that is the target of a
multisample resolve operation from the corresponding color attachment at
the end of the subpass.
-
Sampled Image
-
A descriptor type that represents an image view, and supports filtered
(sampled) and unfiltered read-only acccess in a shader.
-
Sampler
-
An object that contains state that controls how sampled image data is
sampled (or filtered) when accessed in a shader.
Also a descriptor type describing the object.
Represented by a
VkSampler
object.
-
Secondary Command Buffer
-
A command buffer that can be executed by a primary command buffer, and
must not be submitted directly to a queue.
-
Self-Dependency
-
A subpass dependency from a subpass to itself, i.e. with
srcSubpass
equal to dstSubpass
.
A self-dependency is not automatically performed during a render pass
instance, rather a subset of it can be performed via
vkCmdPipelineBarrier
during the subpass.
-
Semaphore
-
A synchronization primitive that supports signal and wait operations,
and can be used to synchronize operations within a queue or across
queues.
Represented by a
VkSemaphore
object.
-
Shader
-
Instructions selected (via an entry point) from a shader module, which
are executed in a shader stage.
-
Shader Code
-
A stream of instructions used to describe the operation of a shader.
-
Shader Module
-
A collection of shader code, potentially including several functions and
entry points, that is used to create shaders in pipelines.
Represented by a
VkShaderModule
object.
-
Shader Stage
-
A stage of the graphics or compute pipeline that executes shader code.
-
Side Effect
-
A store to memory or atomic operation on memory from a shader
invocation.
-
Sparse Block
-
An element of a sparse resource that can be independently bound to
memory.
Sparse blocks of a particular sparse resource have a corresponding size
in bytes that they use in the bound memory.
-
Sparse Image Block
-
A sparse block in a sparse partially-resident image.
In addition to the sparse block size in bytes, sparse image blocks have
a corresponding width, height, and depth that define the dimensions of
these elements in units of texels or compressed texel blocks, the latter
being used in case of sparse images having a block-compressed format.
-
Sparse Unbound Texel
-
A texel read from a region of a sparse texture that does not have memory
bound to it.
-
Static Use
-
An object in a shader is statically used by a shader entry point if any
function in the entry point’s call tree contains an instruction using
the object.
Static use is used to constrain the set of descriptors used by a shader
entry point.
-
Storage Buffer
-
A descriptor type that represents a buffer, and supports reads, writes,
and atomics in a shader.
-
Storage Image
-
A descriptor type that represents an image view, and supports unfiltered
loads, stores, and atomics in a shader.
-
Storage Texel Buffer
-
A descriptor type that represents a buffer view, and supports
unfiltered, formatted reads, writes, and atomics in a shader.
-
Subpass
-
A phase of rendering within a render pass, that reads and writes a
subset of the attachments.
-
Subpass Dependency
-
An execution and/or memory dependency between two subpasses described as
part of render pass creation, and automatically performed between
subpasses in a render pass instance.
A subpass dependency limits the overlap of execution of the pair of
subpasses, and can provide guarantees of memory coherence between
accesses in the subpasses.
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Subpass Description
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Lists of attachment indices for input attachments, color attachments,
depth/stencil attachment, resolve attachments, and preserve attachments
used by the subpass in a render pass.
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Subset (Self-Dependency)
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A subset of a self-dependency is a pipeline barrier performed during the
subpass of the self-dependency, and whose stage masks and access masks
each contain a subset of the bits set in the identically named mask in
the self-dependency.
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Texel Coordinate System
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One of three coordinate systems (normalized, unnormalized, integer) that
define how texel coordinates are interpreted in an image or a specific
mipmap level of an image.
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Uniform Texel Buffer
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A descriptor type that represents a buffer view, and supports
unfiltered, formatted, read-only access in a shader.
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Uniform Buffer
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A descriptor type that represents a buffer, and supports read-only
access in a shader.
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Unnormalized
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A value that is interpreted according to its conventional
interpretation, and is not normalized.
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User-Defined Variable Interface
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A shader entry point’s variables with
Input
or Output
storage
class that are not built-in variables.
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Vertex Input Attribute
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A graphics pipeline resource that produces input values for the vertex
shader by reading data from a vertex input binding and converting it to
the attribute’s format.
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Vertex Input Binding
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A graphics pipeline resource that is bound to a buffer and includes
state that affects addressing calculations within that buffer.
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Vertex Input Interface
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A vertex shader entry point’s variables with
Input
storage class,
which receive values from vertex input attributes.
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Vertex Processing Stages
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A set of shader stages that comprises the vertex shader, tessellation
control shader, tessellation evaluation shader, and geometry shader
stages.
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View Volume
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A subspace in homogeneous coordinates, corresponding to post-projection
x and y values between -1 and +1, and z values between 0 and +1.
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Viewport Transformation
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A transformation from normalized device coordinates to framebuffer
coordinates, based on a viewport rectangle and depth range.
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Visibility Operation
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An operation that causes available values to become visible to specified
memory accesses.
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Visible
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A state of values written to memory that allows them to be accessed by a
set of operations.