By Sander Schaminee
Abstract:
The Dutch government has decided that 20 regions in the Netherlands are to be declared as so-called National Landscapes. These National Landscapes are unique in The Netherlands and sometimes even in the world. The regions are known for certain characteristics. These characteristics are also called landscape qualities. Each National Landscape has got at least 3 core qualities, which makes them stand out in comparison with the other National Landscapes.
Alterra has been asked to visualize the National Landscapes in a 3D-GIS environment. In these visualizations, the core qualities of each region had to become clear.
This thesis focuses on several issues that come to light while working on the visualizations. It tries to look at the suitability of various software products for the visualization of rural landscapes and it investigates the suitability and possible shortcomings of the Top10 Vector and other digital maps as a good starting point for the visualization of the landscape qualities. Also, it will take a good look at which qualities can be visualized and which ones cannot.
The government asked Alterra to find ways to visualize temporal and spatial change in the National Landscape. This research will describe some techniques to effectively show these changes and the impact on the core qualities of the National Landscape. Usually changes are being seen as threats, but they can also act as opportunities.
Upon the outcome of this research, the results are discussed and recommendations are being made, especially considering improvements that can be made for the information stored in the GIS-data in order to ease the creation of 3D National Landscapes and their core qualities in particular.