Sky-View Factor as a Relief Visualization Technique

Remote sensing has become the most important data source for the digital elevation model (DEM) generation. DEM analyses can be applied in various fields and many of them require appropriate DEM visualization support. Analytical hill-shading is the most frequently used relief visualization technique....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2011-02, Vol.3 (2), p.398-415
Main Authors: Zaksek, Klemen, Ostir, Kristof, Kokalj, Ziga
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
analytical hill-shading
digital elevation model
Light sources
relief mapping
Remote sensing
sky-view factor
visualization
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Remote sensing has become the most important data source for the digital elevation model (DEM) generation. DEM analyses can be applied in various fields and many of them require appropriate DEM visualization support. Analytical hill-shading is the most frequently used relief visualization technique. Although widely accepted, this method has two major drawbacks: identifying details in deep shades and inability to properly represent linear features lying parallel to the light beam. Several authors have tried to overcome these limitations by changing the position of the light source or by filtering. This paper proposes a new relief visualization technique based on diffuse, rather than direct, illumination. It utilizes the sky-view factor—a parameter corresponding to the portion of visible sky limited by relief. Sky-view factor can be used as a general relief visualization technique to show relief characteristics. In particular, we show that this visualization is a very useful tool in archaeology as it improves the recognition of small scale features from high resolution DEMs.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs3020398