Texture Viewsheds

This research seeks to employ a combination of computer aided design and geographic information systems methodologies in order to produce visual and numeric summaries of landscapes and built spaces. 'Texture Viewsheds' are summaries of the visibility and other properties of all objects within a given reconstruction scenario. They provide a powerful means for comparing the spatial characteristics of different environments, including issues such as enclosure, encounter and liminality. Initial results based on models of the Holyrood Church, Southampton and the House of the Birds, Italica indicate that this methodology may offer a useful additional element to the existing spatial analysis toolset, which includes approaches such as access analysis, cumulative and total viewsheds and isovists.

Earl, G.P. 2005. Spatial summaries of built archaeological spaces: a technique derived from global light mapping. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, Ghent, Belgium VSMM (2005) Brussels: ENAME