Integrated GIS software for computing landscape visibility metrics

International audienceAs an important component of the quality of the living environment,landscape is increasingly addressed in terms ofits visual dimension. In contrast to the point‐like characterof in situ observations and photographic analyses, themodeling of landscape visibility from digital data has theadvantage of scanning geographical space in a systematicway. However, the tools currently available for visibilitymodeling are limited to the mapping of viewsheds. Theyrequire complementary operations for a complete landscapeassessment, including direct and easy computationof landscape metrics. Furthermore, none of those toolsintegrates recent technical advances to better characterizethe visible landscape by tangential vision (i.e., fromground level as opposed to vision by viewshed fromabove). Starting from this, PixScape software proposes tointegrate a large set of functions for modeling landscapevisibility while remaining interfaced with GIS software.This software can be used to perform a complete landscapeassessment by computing a wide range of originallandscape metrics. It performs tangential analysis in additionto viewshed analysis, which can produce more realisticoutcomes. Because landscape visibility analysis overlarge areas implies significant computation time, the softwarealso integrates a multi‐resolution process intendedto speed up calculations while also taking into account thecognitive abilities of human vision