Anti-Aliasing

What is Anti-Aliasing?

Anti-Aliasing is a technique used to smooth jagged edges (also called "jaggies") that appear in rendered graphics, improving visual quality in architectural visualizations, automotive designs, and interactive applications.

How does Anti-Aliasing work?

This fundamental rendering process works by blending the colors of an edge with those of adjacent pixels, creating a more natural transition between contrasting elements.

The technique becomes particularly vital in immersive environments where visual inconsistencies can significantly diminish the user's sense of presence. Real-time development platforms offer multiple implementation methods, with forward rendering pipelines typically supporting Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) for efficient edge smoothing.

For projects utilizing deferred rendering approaches, developers can instead apply post-processing anti-aliasing effects such as Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) or Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA).

How is Anti-Aliasing used?

Making appropriate anti-aliasing choices balances visual quality against performance requirements, an especially critical consideration for mobile applications or VR experiences where maintaining consistent frame rates directly impacts user comfort.