In Vulkan, there are two very important types of resources in which data can be stored--buffers and images. Buffers represent linear arrays of data. Images, similarly to OpenGL's textures, represent one-, two-, or three-dimensional data organized in a way that is (generally) specific for a given hardware (so we don't know the internal memory structure). Buffers and images can be used for various purposes: in shaders, we can read or sample data from them, or store data in them. Images can be used as color or depth/stencil attachments (render targets), which means that we can render into them. Buffers can also store vertex attributes, indices, or parameters used during indirect drawing.
What is very important is that each of the mentioned usages must be specified during resource creation (we can provide many of them at once). We also need to inform the driver when we change the way in which...