Integrated GIS software for computing landscape visibility metrics
Abstract
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.