The effect of topography and elevation on viewsheds in mountain landscapes using geovisualization

ABSTRACTVisibility analyses provide an opportunity for addressing landscape exploration (e.g. assessing touristic experience). The locations of observers in 3D space and the topographic character of the overall landscape have been shown to act on the respective visibility spatial patterns (viewsheds). However, the way observers explore a landscape is not static but sequential. In this paper, we design explorative geographic visualizations (animated viewshed maps) which dynamically visualize the parts of a mountain landscape that are visible from hypothetical observers moving upon different topographic features (e.g. ridgelines). In these geovisualizations, the observers' elevation changes are displayed with inset profile graphs as well. Overall, these animated maps facilitate the visual exploration of viewsheds' evolution simultaneously with observers' changing positions. In this manner, insight is provided about the influence of the moving observers' topographic features and elevation upon the viewsheds'...