Design Nomenclature / Composition
Overlap
Also called occlusion, interposition
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
One form covering part of another, which fixes their depth order absolutely: the occluder is nearer, and no other cue can overrule it. The strongest and cheapest depth cue on a flat plane, and the only one that works with no size, colour, or perspective information present at all.
Not to be confused with
- Figure–groundThe partition of a field into a form that has shape and a ground that runs behind it. The figure owns the shared contour; the ground does not, which is why ground reads as continuous and shapeless. Small, enclosed, convex, and lower regions tend to win figure status.
- Atmospheric perspectiveDepth read from the air itself: distant forms lose contrast, shift toward the sky's colour, and soften at the edge, because scattering fills the intervening volume. A tonal cue independent of geometry — it works on a shapeless field, where linear perspective has nothing to converge.