Architecture Commons^™

Visualization Tools For Visual Impact Assessments: A Study Of Existing Technologies, Anthony J. Depriest, Tim D. Keane, Brent C. Chamberlain, Mark Lindquist

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

In the last few decades, digital technology has dramatically altered how visual resource management and visual impact assessments (VIAs) are conducted. The recent emergence of low-cost immersive technology offers a suite of tools that could facilitate the VIA process. However, to date there is limited empirical evidence evaluating how these emerging technologies could influence VIA. The research presented here begins to fill this gap by comparing immersive virtual environments to existing 2D photo-based methods for assessing the visual impacts of development. 23 participants familiar with VIAs rated the visual qualities of different scenes presented as 360° images, Google Earth and …