  We introduce the notion of the visual core of a hyperbolic 3-manifold N and
explore its basic properties. The visual core can be thought of as a harmonic
analysis analogue of the convex core. We investigate circumstances in which the
visual core of a cover N' of N embeds under the covering map from N' to N. We
apply this analysis to convergent sequences of Kleinian groups, in order to
understand when the visual core of the algebraic limit manifold embeds in the
geometric limit manifold. We close with a discussion of the behavior of the
visual core under Klein-Maskit combination.
