Environmental Visualisation

Environmental visualisation is an emerging topic in the field of information visualisation. It is fast gaining importance because natural environments are constantly being subjected to complex interactions between the physical world and human impacts. Natural environments are valued because of their pristine wilderness appearances, and human interventions normally seek to be in sympathy with the aesthetics of natural environments wherever possible. Visualisation can be used to show the visual impact of changes on a landscape. Visualisation can be used to structure information in ways which highlight interests of users, rather than simply providing raw data. In seeking to manage natural environments, it is desirable to model and understand these complex interactions in order to compare the outcomes when different management scenarios are applied. To achieve this, environmental visualisations are valuable.