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Landscape Animation
Summary of an experimental
approach to inform the use of camera
dynamics in visualization
Outline
• Theoretical context: towards a theory of landscape
information
• Application: landscape animation design
• Experimental design: controlling landscape visual
variables
• Study of camera motion: trajectories
• Extracting landscape experience: Questionnaire
• Landscape animation of mystery
Landscape Information
• Landscape as an expression of geographic
information: the theory of fields
• The visual landscape as an information structure:
from depth cues to visual landscape elements
• The access to landscape information through
changing location and evolving time
• The framework of geographic visualization as an
organizing structure
Landscape animation design
• A framework for landscape information may be
the basis for developing visualization guidelines
• Design would be considered a way to manage
landscape information for particular purposes
• For example, optimization of the communication
of landscape spatial information, or discovery of
visual elements such as landscape form.
• It requires a linkage between spatial and non
spatial information, aesthetics and sense of place
within the same information framework (e.g.
useful theories: Kaplan’s)
Rationale for experimental design
• The objective is to identify fundamental landscape
visual variables that govern the way visual
elements can be used for communicating and
discovering information
• Visual variables include the physical landscape
properties and observation parameters
• Visualization and representation allows us to
consider landscape elements as variables
containing information to be studied
experimentally
Observation as experimental
variable
• Term project dedicated to study ways to control
the visual variables of observation parameters
• Camera observation considered as a function of
landscape form: close dependency or
independency
• The observation variables are complex. Camera
altitude is considered a primary control on the
access to landscape information.
Trajectories and camera motion
• The vertical motion of the location of a
camera over the landscape is isolated from
horizontal motion (constant) and from target
motion
• Two main trajectories type identified:
terrain following and uniform, with
variations in between according to filtering
and generalization
Subjective evaluation:
Questionnaire
• The evaluation of the overall impact of landscape
information is based on quantitative spatial
analysis and subjective measures of landscape
experience
• A questionnaire has been developed for assessing
the acquisition of spatial knowledge about
trajectory and landscape, the aesthetic reaction to
landscape and the sense of place elicited from it.
• If landscape experience varies significantly across
trajectories, landscape information impact is
different and the need for design is justified (it is
then possible to expand from that)
Beyond experimental design
• Ideally the landscape animation design guidelines
can be applied to develop better visualizations of
landscape that optimally manage spatial
information and elicit aesthetic reactions
• An example might be to focus on the idea of
discovery in the landscape (feature hidden behind
another feature) and aim at the aesthetical reaction
of mystery.
Conclusions
• A theory of landscape information is needed to
develop landscape visualization guidelines
• Landscape animation design involves controlling
the effects of camera location, but not only
• Landscape experience is extracted through a
questionnaire that explores spatial knowledge,
aesthetics and sense of place
• Guidelines can be applied to document specific
landscape exploration elements such as mystery
and discovery