As an important component of the quality of the living environment,
landscape is increasingly addressed in terms of
its visual dimension. In contrast to the point‐like character
of in situ observations and photographic analyses, the
modeling of landscape visibility from digital data has the
advantage of scanning geographical space in a systematic
way. However, the tools currently available for visibility
modeling are limited to the mapping of viewsheds. They
require complementary operations for a complete landscape
assessment, including direct and easy computation
of landscape metrics. Furthermore, none of those tools
integrates recent technical advances to better characterize
the visible landscape by tangential vision (i.e., from
ground level as opposed to vision by viewshed from
above). Starting from this, PixScape software proposes to
integrate a large set of functions for modeling landscape
visibility while remaining interfaced with GIS software.
This software can be used to perform a complete landscape
assessment by computing a wide range of original
landscape metrics. It performs tangential analysis in addition
to viewshed analysis, which can produce more realistic
outcomes. Because landscape visibility analysis over
large areas implies significant computation time, the software
also integrates a multi‐resolution process intended
to speed up calculations while also taking into account the
cognitive abilities of human vision.
#1Mohamed Hilal(INRA: Institut national de la recherche agronomique)H-Index: 10
#2Daniel Joly(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 9
Last. Gilles Vuidel(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 11
view all 4 authors...
Vegetation in cities keeps climate warming down and improves the health of people and ecosystems while making for a pleasant urban setting. Contemporary urban planning promotes sustainable green cities. Green and blue infrastructures, which help maintain an eco-friendly environment, are the primary instruments of this movement. This paper attempts to show the relative weight of plant life (trees, grass, orchards, etc.) seen from buildings in different urban settings (local urban patterns of high...
A review of the archaeological and non-archaeological use of visibility networks reveals the use of a limited range of formal techniques, in particular for representing visibility theories. This paper aims to contribute to the study of complex visual relational phenomena in landscape archaeology by proposing a range of visibility network patterns and methods. We propose first- and second-order visibility graph representations of total and cumulative viewsheds, and two-mode representations of cum...
Context Human and natural systems interact at multiple scales which are context specific in relation to ecosystem service supply. Scenic beauty is recognised as a cultural ecosystem service whose aesthetic value is perceived at a holistic landscape level.
Last. Jean-Christophe Foltête(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 19
view all 3 authors...
The aesthetic potential of landscape has to be modelled to provide tools for land-use planning. This involves identifying landscape attributes and revealing individuals’ landscape preferences. Landscape aesthetic judgments of individuals (n = 1420) were studied by means of a photo-based survey. A set of landscape visibility metrics was created to measure landscape composition and configuration in each photograph using spatial data. These metrics were used as explanatory variables in multiple lin...
#1Belén Martín(UPM: Technical University of Madrid)H-Index: 7
#2Emilio Ortega(UPM: Technical University of Madrid)H-Index: 12
Last. Rosa M. Arce(UPM: Technical University of Madrid)H-Index: 7
view all 4 authors...
Abstract Planning and monitoring of landscapes cannot be reduced to its outstanding features, but must take into account all its characteristics. In this context, the relationship of landscape with roads is of particular importance, because roads alter the territory’s environmental resources but also constitute a resource through which the individual comes into contact with the landscape. The aim of this work is to design a methodology to evaluate both the character and the scenic quality of the...
#1Yohan Sahraoui(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 5
#2Samy Youssoufi(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 3
Last. Jean-Christophe Foltête(CNRS: Centre national de la recherche scientifique)H-Index: 19
view all 3 authors...
Residential satisfaction with landscape has to be modeled in order to include landscape in regional planning decisions. The landscape attributes of a location may be evaluated by means of field audits (in situ approach) or they may be based on variables derived from digital data (GIS approach). In order to compare these two ways of investigating residential satisfaction, a set of in situ metrics and a set of GIS visibility metrics were collated from residential locations in a suburban setting. T...
Abstract A landscape sensitivity index provides information about the location of the most sensitive forest areas in terms of visual alteration. This information is needed to recognize those areas which require special attention in terms of management policy decisions and in directing landscape management activities and subsidies. The main goal of this study was to develop and test a GIS-based method to enable the production of a sensitivity index map on a regional scale. To accomplish this, sen...
Last. Olaf Schroth(University of Sheffield)H-Index: 7
view all 3 authors...
Large scale transportation projects can adversely affect the visual perception of environmental quality and require adequate visual impact assessment. In this study, we investigated the effects of the characteristics of the road project and the character of the existing landscape on the perceived visual impact of motorways, and developed a GIS-based prediction model based on the findings. An online survey using computer-visualised scenes of different motorway and landscape scenarios was carried ...
#1Daniel Nutsford(Cant.: University of Canterbury)H-Index: 5
#2Femke Reitsma(Cant.: University of Canterbury)H-Index: 16
Last. Simon Kingham(Cant.: University of Canterbury)H-Index: 40
view all 4 authors...
Abstract Viewshed analysis remains one of the most popular GIS tools for assessing visibility, despite the recognition of several limitations when quantifying visibility from a human perspective. The visual significance of terrain is heavily influenced by the vertical dimension (i.e. slope, aspect and elevation) and distance from the observer, neither of which are adjusted for in standard viewshed analyses. Based on these limitations, this study aimed to develop a methodology which extends the s...
Some advances in our methodological approach for visibility analysis (VA) and some relevant improvements of the software tool (MOYSES v4.0) are presented. Usually visibility studies and Visual Impact Assessments (VIA) are expressed as reports that are carried out only when design of projected structures is already completed. The proposal presented here provides methods and tools that can help to measure and incorporate visibility as a part of the engineering design process. Different queries can...
Abstract Understanding the consequences of land-use changes on aesthetic values associated with mountain landscapes is important for decision-making and landscape planning. While most research on aesthetic landscape values has been carried out at small scales and disregarding landscape changes, this study aims at analysing changes in aesthetic landscape values for three time steps between 1950 and 2010 across the European Alps. We first map aesthetic values at the landscape scale for selected mu...
Identification of terrain surface features can be done using approaches such as visual observation or remote sensing image processing. Accurate detection of survey targets at the ground level prima...
Landscape ecological aesthetics is a relevant conceptual framework for studying landscape multi-functionality. While the relationships between aesthetic and ecological landscape qualities have been explored and debated in landscape research they have been addressed very little in spatially explicit approaches, and never in a dynamic way. However, a set of spatial metrics can be used to characterize the visual and ecological dimensions of landscape and changes in them. In this study, we propose a...
Visual pollution (VP) in the form of outdoor advertisements (OA) is a threat to landscape physiognomy. Despite their proven usefulness in landscape aesthetic studies, landscape metrics have not yet been applied to address the phenomenon of VP. To fill this knowledge gap, a methodological framework for the measurement of VP using tangential view landscape metrics is proposed, which is accompanied by statistically significant proofs. Raster products derived from aerial laser scanning data were use...
This paper focuses on the combined impact of sound and visibility features on residential satisfaction in a suburban context. Based on a modeling approach, the study presents an integrated analysis where a set of spatial metrics, describing visibility of landscape features and road-traffic noise, are associated with data from a survey of neighborhood satisfaction. This survey was conducted on a sample of 845 inhabitants living in a medium-size French city. Using a PLS path model, the main object...
Last. Yan Zhang(NFU: Nanjing Forestry University)H-Index: 1
view all 6 authors...
Abstract Traditional human-vision-based watchtower systems are being gradually replaced by the machine-vision-based watchtower system. The visual range of machine-vision-based watchtower is smaller than the range of traditional human-vision-based watchtower, which has led to a sharp increase in the number of towers that should be deployed. Consequently, the overlapping area between watchtowers is larger and overlaps are more frequent than in conventional watchtower networks. This poses an urgent...
Social media continues to grow, permanently capturing our digital footprint in the form of texts, photographs, and videos, thereby reflecting our daily lives. Therefore, recent studies are increasingly recognising passively crowdsourced geotagged photographs retrieved from location-based social media as suitable data for quantitative mapping and assessment of cultural ecosystem service (CES) flow. In this study, we attempt to improve CES mapping from geotagged photographs by combining natural la...
#2Jens Ingensand(University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland)H-Index: 3
Last. Nicolas Blanc(University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland)H-Index: 1
view all 3 authors...
Abstract Geotagged photos posted on photo-sharing platforms have recently become a new source of information for analysing landscape preferences and investigating the aesthetic dimension of cultural ecosystem services. Most studies seek to explain photo density by landscape or spatial characteristics that might account for individual preferences and aesthetic criteria favoured by photographers. We focus instead on a “panorama level” of analysis, based on the assumption that photos represent pref...
Abstract Planning and management of forest parks have been contentious and challenging, as multiple and sometimes conflicting uses must be accommodated, especially in urban and peri-urban areas. Methodologies are thus needed to explore and evaluate development and conservation initiatives as a crucial part of sustainable planning and management process. In China, urban forest parks have been increasingly established aiming at satisfying the recreational demand of citizens in tandem with preservi...
