The described technology includes a depth ray shader stored in memory and executable to receive a depth map defining a depth in association with each pixel in a three-dimensional scene and define a color gradient between a first pixel value and a second pixel value, wherein each sequential step in the color gradient between the first pixel value and the second pixel is assigned to a corresponding depth of increasing magnitude relative to a reference point. The depth ray shader is further executable to provide an instruction to a graphics engine to cause the graphics engine to apply a depth ray layer to a select portion of the three-dimensional scene, the depth ray layer altering each pixel in the selected portion to assume a pixel value defined within the color gradient to correspond to a depth of the pixel specified by the depth map.