Parallel Viewshed Analysis on GPU Using CUDA

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingjie Xia ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
Xingmin Shi
Keyword(s):  
Viewshed Analysis

Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Past Behavior ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
And Control ◽  
Statistical Results ◽  
Critical Resources

A multitude of factors, ranging from environmental to ideological, determine where human settlements are placed on the landscape. In archaeological contexts, finding the reasons behind settlement choice can be very difficult and often requires the use of ethnographic analogies and/or modeling in a geographic information system (GIS). Archaeologists have used one particular GIS-based method, viewshed analysis, to examine site features such as defensibility and control over economic hinterlands. I use viewshed analysis in this case study to determine how the natural and political landscapes affected the settlement location choices of the Late Woodland and early Historic Onondaga Iroquois. Proximity to critical resources and defensibility both factored into the decision of where communities would place villages. Although this study shows that resources, such as productive soils, had a more significant effect on settlement choice, Iroquois communities were also taking measures to maintain the defensibility of their villages. This examination displays how GIS analyses in archaeology can go beyond the statistical results and help us understand past behavior.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 20200478
Author(s):  
Job Aben ◽  
Johannes Signer ◽  
Janne Heiskanen ◽  
Petri Pellikka ◽  
Justin M. J. Travis
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Forest Birds ◽  
Lidar Data ◽  
Perceptual Range ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Structured Matrix ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Step Selection

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.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
George D. Malaperdas
Keyword(s):  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Residential Facilities ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Observation Station ◽  
Visibility Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Area Of Study

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.

scholarly journals A GIS-based viewshed analysis of Chacoan tower kivas in the US Southwest: were they for seeing or to be seen?

Antiquity ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (353) ◽  
pp. 1302-1317 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kantner ◽  
Ronald Hobgood
Keyword(s):  
Us Southwest ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
The Us ◽  
Image Position

Abstract

Watchful realms: integrating GIS analysis and political history in the southern Maya lowlands

Antiquity ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (333) ◽  
pp. 792-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Doyle ◽  
Thomas G. Garrison ◽  
Stephen D. Houston
Keyword(s):  
Surface Analysis ◽  
Political History ◽  
Gis Analysis ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Gis Techniques ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Cost Surface ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Travellers naturally prefer to use the most passable routes and establish staging points on the way. Cost surface analysis predicts the easiest routes and viewshed analysis the territory visible from a staging point or destination. Applying these GIS techniques to the Buenavista Valley Corridor, our authors write a history of travel and exchange that vividly reflects the rivalry of two polities and the rise and fall of their nodal settlements.

scholarly journals Assessment of Changes in a Viewshed in the Western Carpathians Landscape as a Result of Reforestation

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 430
Author(s):  
Michał Sobala ◽  
Urszula Myga-Piątek ◽  
Bartłomiej Szypuła
Keyword(s):  
Digital Elevation Model ◽  
Forest Succession ◽  
Western Carpathians ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Digital Surface Model ◽  
Mountainous Areas ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Digital Elevation ◽  
Elevation Model ◽  
The Impact

A viewshed analysis is of great importance in mountainous areas characterized by high landscape values. The aim of this research was to determine the impact of reforestation occurring on former pasturelands on changes in the viewshed, and to quantify changes in the surface of glades. We combine a horizontal and a vertical approach to landscape analysis. The changes in non-forest areas and the viewshed from viewpoints located in glades were calculated using historical cartographic materials and a more recent Digital Elevation Model and Digital Surface Model. An analysis was conducted using a Visibility tool in ArcGIS. The non-forest areas decreased in the period 1848–2015. The viewshed in the majority of viewpoints also decreased in the period 1848–2015. In the majority of cases, the maximal viewsheds were calculated in 1879/1885 and 1933 (43.8% of the analyzed cases), whereas the minimal ones were calculated in 2015 (almost 57.5% of analyzed cases). Changes in the viewshed range from 0.2 to 23.5 km2 with half the cases analyzed being no more than 1.4 km2. The results indicate that forest succession on abandoned glades does not always cause a decline in the viewshed. Deforestation in neighboring areas may be another factor that has an influence on the decline.

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