F

face

A single polygon in a mesh.

flip

The process of swapping the addresses associated with the back and front buffers. This effectively swaps the image in the back buffer to the front buffer, thereby displaying the image.

flipping surface

Any piece of memory that can be flipped. See also flip.

frame

An invisible box that provides a frame of reference for objects in a scene. Objects can be placed in a scene by specifying their spatial relationship to a relevant reference frame. Visual objects take their positions and orientations from frames. Also, a single image from a movie or animation.

front buffer

The first buffer in a flipping chain. In many cases, this will be the visible primary surface. In other cases, such as a flipping chain of textures, the front buffer is the surface the 3D engine will get the texture from, but it is not the primary surface and is not displayed. In the case of flipping overlay surfaces, the front buffer is displayed, but is only a surface overlaid on the primary surface. See also primary surface.

front clipping plane

The near boundary of a viewing frustum. Any object closer to the camera than the front clipping plane is not rendered. The height of the front clipping plane defines the field of view. See also back clipping plane.