Quick and Dirty Viewshed Visualization

By Ken Goulding posted on Fri, 2009-06-26 13:26 , 432 reads, 0 comments

Developers place a premium on dwelling units with “ocean views” and other desirable views. This technique offers us a means of quickly visualizing which buildings will have desirable views. The trick is to place lights in a grid and observe how these strike buildings in the model.

 

 

Areas of the building facade with brighter blue light can be considered to have more desirable views. Those areas in shadow, or dimly lit don't "see" as much of the desirable views.

 

We could easily take this a step further and use 3D Max to perform rough calculations based on how many “windows” on each building receive light from the “view”. From this one could quantify how many units have full, partial and obstructed ocean views.

 

This would allow one to very quickly compare scenarios and optimize the 3D massing to achieve the most value for the developer.

 

A slightly more complex visualization prioritizes views of the pier, represented by orange lights. The partially obstructed buildings show a mix of ocean and pier views depending where one is on the building facade.

 

 

Unfortunately the more components you add, the less clear this visualization will become. However if we use the aforementioned technique to quantify the amount of desirable views, this can accommodate as many view elements as we need. One can also break out the visualization into multiple images to examine each of the components.