A new GIS-compatible methodology for visibility analysis in digital surface models of earth sites

Katerina Ruzickova; Jan Ruzicka; Jan Bitta

doi:10.1016/j.gsf.2020.11.006

Volume 12 Issue 4

Jul. 2021

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Katerina Ruzickova, Jan Ruzicka, Jan Bitta. A new GIS-compatible methodology for visibility analysis in digital surface models of earth sites[J]. Geoscience Frontiers, 2021, 12(4): 101109. doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2020.11.006

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Katerina Ruzickova, Jan Ruzicka, Jan Bitta. A new GIS-compatible methodology for visibility analysis in digital surface models of earth sites[J]. Geoscience Frontiers, 2021, 12(4): 101109. doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2020.11.006

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A new GIS-compatible methodology for visibility analysis in digital surface models of earth sites

doi: 10.1016/j.gsf.2020.11.006

VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic

Funds:

This work was financially supported by project 133/2016/RPP-TO-1/b "Teaching of advanced techniques for geodata processing for follow-up study of geoinformatics". The authors wish to thank Mrs. Gabriela Chudasova, Alena Kasparkova, Mr. Mark Landry and City Hills Proofreading for proofreading the manuscript.

Received Date: 2019-06-28
Rev Recd Date: 2020-09-11
Publish Date: 2021-07-17

Abstract

Abstract

As a GIS tool, visibility analysis is used in many areas to evaluate both visible and non-visible places. Visibility analysis builds on a digital surface model describing the terrain morphology, including the position and shapes of all objects that can sometimes act as visibility barriers. However, some barriers, for example vegetation, may be permeable to a certain degree. Despite extensive research and use of visibility analysis in different areas, standard GIS tools do not take permeability into account. This article presents a new method to calculate visibility through partly permeable obstacles. The method is based on a quasi-Monte Carlo simulation with 100 iterations of visibility calculation. Each iteration result represents 1% of vegetation permeability, which can thus range from 1% to 100% visibility behind vegetation obstacles. The main advantage of the method is greater accuracy of visibility results and easy implementation on any GIS software. The incorporation of the proposed method in GIS software would facilitate work in many fields, such as architecture, archaeology, radio communication, and the military.
- Digital surface model,
- Visibility analysis,
- Topographic data processing,
- Obstacle object,
- Permeability

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References(58)

References

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