prepass

plural prepasses

1. computingA prior pass of an algorithm or process, sometimes as an optimization to handle simpler cases.

   If you're trying to render an image of 800 × 600 pixels and you do the prepass with just 200 × 150 pixels, then you'll see fewer details there and you can't place the sampling points as exactly.

   2002, Arndt von Koenigsmarck, Maxon Cinema 4D 7: A Workshop for 2D/3D Graphics Pros, page 277