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Virtual reality for cultural landscape visualization

  • SI: Cultural Technology
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Abstract

Although land managers and policy-makers generally have a good experience of what result can be expected from their decisions, they are often faced with difficulty when trying to communicate the visual impact of a management option to stakeholders, particularly when the landscape exhibits a high cultural value. Three-dimensional visualization of the landscape is often used for communicating with the stakeholders. A challenge in participatory methods for integrated assessment and policy planning is to view future changes in land use, according to scenarios. A 3-D landscape visualization component, SLE (“Seamless Landscape Explorer”), has been developed, which is launched after a scenario simulation to allow for exploration of landscape changes. Pressures causing such changes are translated into changes in the spatial configuration of the landscape. The different types of land-use are visualized thanks to a library of detailed textures, and vegetation can be added. This has been applied to a study of four scenarios in the French Mediterranean region, which were set up as part of a participatory process for discussing the planning of the regional peri-urban and agricultural policy, in an area dominated by the typical culturally sensitive Mediterranean matorral, (“garrigue” shrubland) surrounding the Pic Saint-Loup mountain. Examples of visualization are shown and discussed here.

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Acknowledgments

The SLE software was developed within the SEAMLESS integrated project, EU 6th Framework Programme for Research Technological Development and Demonstration, Priority 1.1.6.3. Global Change and Ecosystems (European Commission, DG Research, contract no. 010036-2). The scenario building was done within the research action “Paysage et biodiversité: évaluation participative de la durabilité des stratégies de gestion” funded by the «Landscape and sustainable development» (PDD- Paysage et développement durable) programme from the French ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development. The co-construction and the evaluation of the scenarios and results were done in close connection with the “Écologistes de l’Euzière” association (http://www.euziere.org/), and the paintings were made by John Walsh.

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  1. Sébastien Griffon

    Present address: CIRAD, UMR AMAP, 34000, Montpellier, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA, UMR AMAP, 34000, Montpellier, France

    Sébastien Griffon

  2. CNRS, UMR ESPACE, 34000, Montpellier, France

    Amélie Nespoulous

  3. CNRS, UMR ESPACE, 84000, Avignon, France

    Jean-Paul Cheylan

  4. CIRAD-ES, 34000, Montpellier, France

    Jean-Paul Cheylan

  5. CNRS, UMR CEFE, 34000, Montpellier, France

    Pascal Marty

  6. CEFRES, USR, 3138 CNRS-MAEE, 128 00, Prague, Czech Republic

    Pascal Marty

  7. INRA, UMR AMAP (botAnique et bioinforMatique de l’Architecture des Plantes), TA A-51/PS2, Bd. de la Lironde, 34398, Montpellier cedex 5, France

    Daniel Auclair

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  1. Sébastien Griffon
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Correspondence to Daniel Auclair.

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Griffon, S., Nespoulous, A., Cheylan, JP. et al. Virtual reality for cultural landscape visualization. Virtual Reality 15, 279–294 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-010-0160-z

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