Multi-scaler 3D modelling to reconstruct an experimental landscape: An example from a worker’s cottage at Mount Dutton Bay, South Australia

New advances in 3D GIS provide the opportunity to create and interact with spatial datasets that are both empirical and experiential, thus bridging the historical divide between cartography and phenomenology. Survey and photogrammetry data from the colonial-era woolshed and port of Mount Dutton Bay in South Australia are used to create a visually realistic 3D landscape model. Viewshed analysis provided important information about the use of space and construction techniques for the shearers' cottage on this site. The results demonstrate that rigorous quantitative analysis is not incompatible with understanding the human experience of an archaeological site, and therefore open up exciting new avenues of archaeological enquiry.

THE BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA AND THE QUESTION OF VISIBILITY ON THE BATTLEFIELD

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the long-standing topographical enigma of the identification of Gaugamela. In this study, a GIS method known as viewshed analysis is employed to solve a certain historical problem.1 According to ancient sources, on the eve of the battle the approaching Macedonian army and the Persian troops that were waiting on the battlefield could not see each other because of intervening hills at a distance of c. 12 km. However, the two armies gained a full view of their respective positions once the Macedonians reached the hills c. six km away from the Persian positions. Our analysis shows that the identification of the battlefield near Tell Gomel, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, is consistent with the visibility requirements of the ancient sources, while the previous identifications of the battlefield in the vicinity of Karamleis and Qaraqosh (Stein 1942; Sushko 1936; Zouboulakis 2015, 2016) feature poor results in terms of expected visibility.

GIS-BASED VIEWSHED ANALYSIS ON THE CONSERVATION PLANNING OF HISTORIC TOWNS: THE CASE STUDY OF XINCHANG, SHANGHAI

This paper discuss an application of the GIS software to analysis the visual effect from specific observation points in the historic towns. The viewshed tool in GIS platforms, including ArcGIS and QGIS, are applied in order to generate observation points and viewshed maps. Dozens of key nodes are selected in Xinchang Ancient Town, such as the protected buildings, the historic bridges, and the historic street intersections, as the observation points of viewshed analysis. The result of the analysis is to generate the viewshed map from each observation point. Subsequently, the observation points are merged and the result of the viewshed analysis of the whole ancient town is created. Based on the viewshed analysis results, the characteristics of the visual effect in the town with gentle terrain and dense building is discussed. The features of the ancient town remind elements that need attention in conservation planning, and guides the building regulation within and outside the set boarder of the protected area.

Practical Methods of GIS for Archaeologists: Viewshed Analysis – The Kingdom of Pylos example

Visibility (or Viewshed) Analysis in archeology is a function given through GIS, in purpose to contribute in the field of archaeology and especially in landscape archeology, by reconstituting the visual panorama of a study area of the past. The concept of landscape archeology is a multidimensional research process that is not limited to archaeologists but places a special emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach. Mycenaean Messenia was the area of study and analysis of the visual panorama for two important reasons. First of all, it is a large area, which presents territories of varying heterogeneity in terms of morphology, while having a large sea front and an open observation horizon. Secondly, it is one of the continental regions of the Mycenaean period, which has evoked the largest number of residential facilities, structures and tombs, and also has been extensively studied by archaeologists since the 1920s. The main aim of this paper is to make an effort to identify archaeological information, through the bibliographic references of the archaeologists who studied the area, with the GIS visibility analysis. For that reason, the author tries for those residential locations that have been assigned a role or function of the site by archaeologists, such as an observation station, to be controlled in parallel and on the basis of new technologies (GIS and Viewshed Analysis) if this view is verified.

Estimating coastal premiums for apartment prices: Towards a new multilevel modelling approach

This article attempts to assess ‘coastal premiums’ for apartment prices in Corsica, France. The coastal premium should consist of two parts, those related to the view of the Mediterranean Sea, and those associated with living close to beaches for access purposes. Views, being a qualitative and subjective variable, are difficult to measure and quantify. Further, apartments are located in neighbourhoods and then are situated in districts or at more aggregated levels. This induces complex spatial interactions. To deal with these, we first employ a viewshed analysis implemented in geographical information systems (GIS) to generate an objective, continuous measurement. We then develop a Bayesian spatial/spatiotemporal multilevel model, which integrates Leroux’s conditional autoregressive process with multilevel modelling for conducting a hedonic analysis in the presence of multiple-scale housing data. Since the developed model pertains to latent Gaussian models, estimation is carried out by integrated nested Laplace approximations. The results demonstrate that homebuyers have a higher marginal willingness to pay for larger views of the sea, and proximity to beaches produces positive impacts on apartment sale prices. Further, strong spatial spillovers emerge among high-level units, but heterogeneity dominates among apartments. Our findings illustrate the importance of coasts to homebuyers. Further, the estimated value permits planners and policymakers to assess the trade-off between developing and preserving land along the coast.

Camp Perry Historic District landscape inventory and viewshed analysis

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) established the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), which requires federal agencies to address their cultural resources, defined as any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure, or object. NHPA section 110 requires federal agencies to inventory and evaluate their cultural resources. Section 106 requires them to determine the effect of federal undertakings on properties deemed eligible or potentially eligible for the NRHP. Camp Perry Joint Training Center (Camp Perry) is located near Port Clinton, Ohio, and serves as an Ohio Army National Guard (OHARNG) training site. It served as an induction center during federal draft periods and as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Previous work established boundaries for an historic district and recommended the district eligible for the NRHP. This project inventoried and evaluated Camp Perry’s historic cultural landscape and outlined approaches and recommendations for treatment by Camp Perry cultural resources management. Based on the landscape evaluation, recommendations of a historic district boundary change were made based on the small number of contributing resources to aid future Section 106 processes and/or development of a programmatic agreement in consultation with the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).

What you see is where you go: visibility influences movement decisions of a forest bird navigating a three-dimensional-structured matrix

Animal spatial behaviour is often presumed to reflect responses to visual cues. However, inference of behaviour in relation to the environment is challenged by the lack of objective methods to identify the information that effectively is available to an animal from a given location. In general, animals are assumed to have unconstrained information on the environment within a detection circle of a certain radius (the perceptual range; PR). However, visual cues are only available up to the first physical obstruction within an animal's PR, making information availability a function of an animal's location within the physical environment (the effective visual perceptual range; EVPR). By using LiDAR data and viewshed analysis, we modelled forest birds' EVPRs at each step along a movement path. We found that the EVPR was on average 0.063% that of an unconstrained PR and, by applying a step-selection analysis, that individuals are 1.55 times more likely to move to a tree within their EVPR than to an equivalent tree outside it. This demonstrates that behavioural choices can be substantially impacted by the characteristics of an individual's EVPR and highlights that inferences made from movement data may be improved by accounting for the EVPR.