Zones of Visual Impact

Intuitive Visual Impact Analysis for the Environmental Disciplines

The number of Environmental Consultants and Landscape Practices using KeyTERRA-FIRMA for Zones of Visual Impact Analysis has grown considerably in recent years as the need to produce evidence regarding the locating of wind farms and other environmentally sensitive structures and developments has increased. Having been at the forefront of ZVI (also known as ZTV - Zones of Theoretical Visibility) software development working within CAD for many years the KTF ZVI module now includes horizontal, vertical and "combined" outputs to illustrate the impact on the receptor's field of view (e.g. the angle within the view containing targets from left to right hand extents).

Visibility Studies

The ZVI module is a powerful analysis and presentation tool to assist with visibility studies. Typically working with very large data sets such as OS LandForm Profile DTM and single or multiple targets this can be a major “number crunching” exercise. Linear (e.g. screen planting) and area visual barriers may be built into the analysis.

Lines of sight from the target point are analysied for sections of visibility and non-visibility. Settings enable the user to define the maximum distance between adjacent radial lines of sight, effectively defining a "resolution" for the analysis.

The drawn result from a single point analysis looks like the illustration above with radial lines representing the analysed lines of sight.

The results from multiple point ZVI calculations are written to a ZVI model for subsequent colour mapping presentation as shown above. This method delivers a high degree of quantitative data.