QGIS visibility plugin – Landscape Archaeology

Visibility index (total viewshed) for QGIS : finally there!

Welcome visibility index algorithm, a.k.a. total viewshed, now available in QGIS Visibility analysis plugin. This metric informs us on the size of the visual field for any location across a…

QGIS plugins

Distance and direction filters for QGIS Viewshed analysis

Viewshed analysis produces a model of visible areas from a chosen point, given a 2.5 or 3D elevation model. Most often, we model full range visibility, in all directions from…

QGIS plugins

Viewshed analysis in QGIS 3: a tutorial

Viewshed analysis denotes field of vision modelling in GIS jargon. The term is quite awkwardly borrowing its suffix from watershed, even if there is nothing being “shed”. Anyway, the term…

Uncategorized

Analysing visual impact of high buildings: the Urkulu tower

Introduction A common problem in visibility analysis is to determine the visual impact of a tall building, for instance a skyscraper or a wind turbine. Now, there is a variety…

QGIS plugins

Intervisibility analysis in QGIS: an archaeological tutorial

Intervisibility analysis tests the potential for visual connection between two observers. I say potential because visibility on landscape scale is often the question of a myriad factors (distance, atmosphere, signal…

QGIS plugins

Depth below horizon: new (old) functionality for QGIS viewshed analysis

The basic idea of visibility analysis is to test whether particular locations are theoretically observable from a given observer point (« theoretically » because our data and algorithms can never…

QGIS plugins

Visibility analysis for QGIS 3.0 : tackling big data

Viewshed plugin for QGIS is based on Numpy library for handling raster data. Numpy is tuned for high performance and is (relatively) easy to use. However, it relies heavily on…

Spatial analysis & GIS

Land visibility in the Mediterranean: a large scale model

Visibility of land was a major consideration for ancient seafaring, for reasons of navigation and security. Even if the open sea travel must have been practised already by the Neolithic…

Uncategorized

Benchmarking viewshed algorithm: Nuraghi of Sardinia

The new viewshed plugin for QGIS 3 features an improved algorithm which should result in perceptible improvements in terms of efficiency. So let’s give it a try! Nuraghe in Toralba-Sant'Antine…

QGIS plugins

Visibility analysis for QGIS 3.0

Visibility analysis plugin is now available in QGIS 3.0! It has been completely refurbished: from now on it will be integrated into the “Processing toolbox”. This is a more appropriate…