A surface typically means a 2D image buffer managed by an API. For example, a graphics API like Metal or Direct3D lets you create surfaces that reside either i

A surface typically means a 2D image buffer managed by an API. For example, a graphics API like Metal or Direct3D lets you create surfaces that reside either in GPU or CPU memory. Or, an OS-level interprocess API like Apple's IOSurface lets you create shared surfaces that can be accessed by multiple processes.