Towards a Practical Method for Voxel-based Visibility Analysis with Point Cloud Data for Landscape Architects: Jichang Garden (Wuxi, China) as an Example

Abstract

This paper focuses on GIS-based visibility analysis to explore landscape architecture com-positions as a means to understand visual-spatial characteristics and identify related design principles. More specifically, the paper elaborates a practical method to employ high-resolution data acquired by terrestrial LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging or Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) for this pur-pose. Though LiDAR provides a powerful means to digitally capture the real-world, methods like GIS-based visual landscape research that utilize viewshed analysis ideally require a continuous Digital Landscape Model conduct visibility computation. Therefore, one of the obstacles before the visual analysis is to process the points into surface or solid models. Voxel-based algorithms are powerful means to process LiDAR data. There are many applications known of voxel-based visibility analysis but requires often specialist software that is hard to handle or unavailable to landscape architects in practice. This paper showcases an attempt to use standard software for voxel-based visibility analysis. It presents a practical method for applications in landscape architecture analysis. Jichang Garden (Wuxi, China) is used as an example. The historical garden is an evocative example of a landscape architecture compo-sition that displays skilful applications of spatial-visual design principles and therefore worthy of ana-lyse.