September, 2009

New Download:

Download RDI's 2003 comprehensive "Visual Landscape System for Planning and Managing Aesthetic Resources" in the oil-sands region of Alberta. Produced for the Sustainable Ecosystems Working Group of the Cumulative Environmental Management Association:

http://www.cemaonline.ca/index.php/news/public-documents/doc_download/2035-rdi-resource-design-inc-2003-visual-landscape-system-for-planning-and-managing-aesthetic-resources

September-December, 2008.

For the second consecutive year, Ken Fairhurst has been the co-instructor for Forestry 491 Visual Resource Planning and Design,  with Dr. Stephen Sheppard at the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. The course website contains a wealth of visual resource managment information and links: Forestry 491. Ken is a Ph. D. Candidate (final year) and member of the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) at UBC: www.calp.forestry.ubc.
 

September, 2006.

IUFRO Conference Bari Italy - VNS Workshop

In collaboration with 3D Nature, LLC., Ken Fairhurst of RDI provided an afternoon pre-conference workshop on VNS at the IUFRO Conference on Simulating Forest Landscape Patterns, Processes, and Consequences of Human Management. The workshop moderator was Dr. Robert Brown, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph, Canada.

The IUFRO Conference was held September 25-29, 2006, at the University of Bari, and nearby at Locorotondo, Italy. The conference examined how forest landscapes are multi-functional systems, how ecological functions are influenced by natural and cultural patterns, and explored how culture affects forest landscapes and, in turn, how landscapes influence human culture.

Ken also presented his academic paper on his Ph.D. Research, GEOptics, at the conference.
 

August, 2006.

Integrated Visual Design Project

RDI was the successful bidder to conduct the FIA-funded Nadina Lake Integrated Visual Design Plan for West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. The project will provide a plan for an entire rotation of forest development and management along the north and east shores and hills.

April 2006. Ken Fairhurst, RDI, developed and chaired a forum on Visual Resource Management Practices and the Practitioner at the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management in Vancouver, Canada, June 3-8, 2006 (ISSRM 2006). Invited panelists from Great Britain, USA, and Canada  debated the future goals of VRM and what is required to accomplish them.

Abstract

Visual resource decisions have an important impact on widespread social, economic and environmental values. These "visual" values are highly integrated with community values, generally. VRM practitioners have many opportunities to develop and conduct management and planning activities for resource protection, addition of value, and/or loss mitigation. Inadequate or misplaced VRM practitioner effort may result in deterioration of visual values that has direct and negative effects on local economies, the environment, and public trust in the natural resource administration process. Existing landscape assessment and evaluation methods were reviewed in 2005 by the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (http://www.macaulay.ac.uk/ccw/task-two/evaluate.html ), providing a good foundation for discussion, including the enduring debate regarding descriptive inventories vs. public preference methods vs. quantitative holistic techniques. To focus the discussions, the panel will consider:

1) if current practices and regulatory mechanisms are on track, relevant, and satisfactorily integrated at the decision and implementation tables;

2) if the right people and organizations are at the table;

3) if participants with new skills, education, and professional credentials are needed;

4) a blueprint for future initiatives for managing visual resources that ensures an effective role for the VRM practitioner;

5) opportunities for dialogue, cross-pollination, and processes between academics and practitioners; and

6) opportunities for systematic objective research and post project evaluation.

April 19-20, 2005.

RDI displayed our products and services at the Visual Resource Management Conference in Kamloops, BC. RDI was the sole corporate exhibitor at this key conference on managing forested viewscapes sponsored by the BC Ministry of Forests, Forest Practices Board, and the University of British Columbia.

 

June, 2005.

Ken Fairhurst presented a paper on his UBC Ph. D. thesis research topic on GEOptics, a methodology for automating landscape planning and design, at the International Sysmposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Keystone, Colorado. 

Nov. 12, 2003

Ken Fairhurst of RDI was involved in a major project at the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), University of British Columbia, Canada, that is bringing computer-generated timber harvest scheduling, roading and forest growth models into the WCS/VNS environment. The procedure links UBC built computer programs for stand-level ecosystem management (FORECAST) and timber supply harvest planning (ATLAS: Forest Planning Studio) with visualization (World Construction Set/Visual Nature Studio) through software called CECIL which was developed at the CALP.

January-April, 2006. RDI conducted an amalgamation and update of the Sea-to-Sky LRMP Frontcountry Visual Landscape Inventory.  Ken also presented an academic paper at ISSRM2006 based on inventory findings.

October, 2005.

Ken Fairhurst presented his UBC Ph. D. Dissertation poster at the "Our Shared Landscape" conference in Ascona, Switzerland, covering his current research on "GEOptics Landscape Apparency Modelling", a methodology for automating landscape planning and design.

 

GEOptics

GEOptics is the term assigned to the Ph.D. dissertation research conducted by Kenneth B. Fairhurst,
Ph. D. Candidate, Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning
Forest Resources Management
Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia
www.calp.forestry.ubc.ca

Dissertation Committee:

Stephen R. J. Sheppard, Ph.D., ASLA, Associate Professor, Dept. of Forest Resources Management/Landscape Architecture Program Management, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada. (Committee Chair and Thesis Supervisor)

Michael J. Meitner, Ph.D., Dept. of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada.

John D. Nelson, Ph.D., Dept. of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

Poster Session Abstract:

GEOptics: light projection on virtual 3d terrain as an analogue for angle of visual incidence for predicting and managing cumulative visual landscape apparency

My research, called GEOptics for the integration of the land (“geo”) and sight or light (“optics”), examines the cumulative illumination intensity of digital 3-dimensional terrain from along viewing corridors. It is an analogue for line-of-sight angle of visual incidence with landscape surfaces. GEOptics connects the moving viewer and the landscape to provide a physical basis for predicting landscape apparency which is the relative prominence of a given part of the landscape as seen in total view.

Areas with high apparency can be at risk of visual impact from land-use operations, and where resource protection or extreme care must be emphasized, while areas with low apparency are more likely to have low or no risk of impact, and where land-use might be intensified. The approach is intended to be easily used by resource managers to improve their guess about what fits in the landscape and in the minds of the viewers along entire travel corridors and across entire planning units.

The research (in progress) will determine if GEOptics can provide improved validity for determining viewer-viewed landscape interactions over conventional landscape inventory (e.g. USFS, BLM, BCMOF), and viewshed and times-seen studies. As slope is a constant, while viewing angle is a variable, it is hypothesized that the GEOptics landscape apparency map can be a better predictor than slope alone. This is particularly expected where viewing opportunities are limited to cross-slopes – even across steep slopes, with low angles of visual incidence, and where superior (elevated) viewing angles are large towards flatter terrain.

Results will be tested for significance for both the proportions of the land-base with steeper slopes with low apparency, and high apparency but low slopes. The utility of GEOptics for resource management will also be tested with groups of practitioners. Significant results could suggest the need for revisions to imposed governmental restrictiveness for visual quality with repercussions on regulated resource availability, and could lead to improved site-based landscape design in lieu of rigid top-down regulations.

Bari, Italy.

Paper to be presented at the IUFRO 2006 International Conference on Patterns and Processes in Forest Landscapes - Consequences of Human Management, September 26-29, 2006.

HOW CAN PLANNERS INTEGRATE VISUAL LANDSCAPE INDICATORS IN MULTI-FUNCTIONAL ENVIRONMENTS OF HIGH VIEWER PERSPECTIVAL VARIABILITY?

A DYNAMIC VISUAL RESOURCE INDICATOR FOR MULTI-FUNCTIONAL LANDSCAPE PLANNING

Kenneth B. Fairhurst

Ph. D. Candidate, Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry
University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC Canada, V6G 2L7
Telephone: 01-604-689-3195, Fax: 01-604-677-5924

www.calp.forestry.ubc.ca

Abstract

People can readily move through the forest landscape on the ground, water, and in the air. The landscape seen through the eyes of its beholders has high perspectival variability. How then, can the visual landscape be reliably included as a meaningful indicator in multi-functional landscape planning? To do so requires a dynamic approach to landscape classification that that goes beyond conventional visual landscape management now in use in many jurisdications (BCMOF, 1995; Lucas, 1991,USFS, 1995; US-BLM 2003). My dissertation research called GEOptics, “GEO” (of the Earth) and “optics” (the science of sight and light), uses a custom-built Visual Nature Studio ^™ (VNS) illumination technique to quantify landscape apparency, or relative visual magnitude (Iverson, 1985), thereby calibrating the cumulative viewing experience.

As GEOptics generates a simple GIS layer of apparency from an entire set of viewpoints, it can provide an indicator for multiple-objective evaluation (Maness and Farrell, 2004), and serves as input to larger integrated decision support systems and spatial forest planning models (Seely et al., 2004; Basken and Kales, 2005). By adding design criteria tied to landscape apparency, GEOptics can guide land management allocation, concentration, and alteration design very early in the planning process, avoid long-term negative implications on visual quality, and encourage public support and understanding.

Based on the angle of visual incidence in each land plane, GEOptics differs from ordinary viewshed and times-seen studies in that it emphasizes how the landscape is seen in totality. Cumulative visual incidence is determined in GEOptics VNS terrain modelling by measuring the total amount of illumination caused in each land plane when lights are projected from points along the view path. By this method, land planes that are highly apparent (most illuminated) are more perpendicularly angled to the line of sight, and thus, exhibit higher risk of visual impact from land-use operations. Such sites may be classified for resource protection where a high degree of visual stewardship is required (Sheppard, 2001). Other sites, having low apparency (low illumination) are more obliquely angled away from the line of sight and, exhibiting quantifiably lower risk of visual impact, may quite readily accept more intensive land-use alteration.

Key Words

apparency, criteria, decision, design, indicator, landscape, forestry, magnitude, planning, public, perspective, spatial,. stewardship, sustainable, visual. Key References

BCMOF, 1997. Visual landscape inventory: procedures and standards manual. Victoria: Prepared by B.C. Ministry of Forests, Forest Practices Branch, for the Culture Task Force, Resources Inventory Committee.

Iverson, Wayne D., 1985. And that’s about the size of it: visual magnitude as a measurement of the physical landscape. Landscape Journal 4(1):14-22.

Lucas, O., 1991. The design of forest landscapes. Oxford University Press. 381pp.

Maness, Thomas, Ross Farell, 2004. A multiple-objective scenario evaluation model for sustainable forest managment using criteria and indicators. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 34 (10):14 p.

Sheppard, S. R. J., 2001. "Beyond visual resource management: emerging theories of an ecological aesthetic and visible stewardship." Pp. xix, 294 , [12] of plates in Forests and landscapes : linking ecology, sustainability and aesthetics, edited by S. R. J. Sheppard, H. W. Harshaw, and International Union of Forestry Research Organizations. Wallingford, Oxon, UK ; New York: CABI Pub. in association with the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO).

USFS, 1995. Landscape aesthetics: a handbook for scenery management. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Agriculture Handbook no. 701.

US-BLM, 2003. Visual resource management - VRM systems. U S Bureau of Land Management, National Training Center.

Biography

Ken Fairhurst is a Ph. D. candidate, member of the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) and teaching assistant for Forestry 491 – Forest Visualization and Design at the University of British Columbia . Ken is also a professional forester, and has been a practicing visual resource management consultant over the past 10 years through his company, RDI Resource Design Inc. With 3-D computer visualization as his specialty, Ken has also developed visual landscape management and design systems for forestry, mining, energy resources, and transportation, and educational courses in design and visualization.

International Symposium on Society and Resource Management
(ISSRM) 2004 Keystone Colorado
Theme 5) Enduring Conceptual Approaches and Methodological Issues:

GEOptics Integrated Landscape Decision Support System (ILDSS)
"GEO - of the Earth / "Optics" - the Science of Sight and Light

A Proposed Methodology for Automating 4-Dimensional Landscape Planning and Design

Visual resource management (VRM) plays a key role in natural resource development decisions. To ensure the best fit for all resources, a simple and effective system for VRM is sought within a modeling hierarchy that can address complex issues and needs. To meet that objective, the GEOptics Integrated Landscape Decision Support System (ILDSS) is being developed as a 4-dimensional spatial-temporal knowledge-based system with potentially broad-ranging landscape planning and design applications.
A simple bottom-up landscape inventory procedure applies viewpoint-specific angle of visual incidence and viewing distance within a digital terrain model environment. Computer-generated light sources are projected from viewpoints to illuminate 3-D terrain surfaces and determine spectral reflectance differences. This analysis leads to determination of visual vulnerability quotients which can be used predict the magnitude of visual impact per unit of land altered or unit of resource extracted.
The resulting quotients of each land-plane will be manipulated to optimize resource utilization, ecosystem sustainability, landscape aesthetics, economics, and other indicators. It is anticipated that the GEOptics ILDSS will be effective for informing multiple resource management objectives and supply issues, and for planning resource design and utilization strategies across large land-bases while integrating public preferences and expectations over the long term.
The procedures form the basis of the author’s current Ph. D. dissertation research at the University of British Columbia.

Ken B. Fairhurst, Ph.D. Candidate,
Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP)
Dept. Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia

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