ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Planar (computer graphics)

Planar in computer graphics means dividing a 3D space into imaginary 2D surfaces called planes. It's like taking a big piece of paper and dividing it into several smaller pieces. Planes can be used to represent different objects in a 3D scene, such as walls, floors, and ceilings.

Imagine you are playing with building blocks. You have different colored blocks that you can stack on top of each other to create a tall tower. Now imagine that you only have a limited amount of blocks, and you want to create a room with walls, a floor, and a ceiling. You can use the blocks to create flat surfaces like walls and floors, but you can't create a curved ceiling. Instead, you can use a flat piece of cardboard to represent the ceiling. This would be an example of using planar surfaces to create a 3D space.

Now, when you look at a computer game or a 3D animation, you are seeing a 3D world that has been created using planar surfaces. For example, the ground you walk on in a video game is a plane, the walls of a building are planes, and the sky is a plane. These planes are created using mathematical equations and algorithms that tell the computer how to draw lines and fill in the space between those lines to create a flat 2D surface.

In summary, planar in computer graphics means dividing a 3D space into flat 2D surfaces called planes to represent different objects in a 3D scene. It's like creating a room out of a limited number of building blocks by using flat pieces of cardboard to represent the ceiling and walls. This allows game developers and animators to create realistic 3D environments that we can explore and interact with.
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