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Algorithms for Visibility Computation on Terrains: A Survey

Environment and Planning B Planning and DesignPublished 1 October 2003
Leila De Floriani, Paola Magillo
Citations120

TL;DR

In this paper, the authors consider a number of visibility problems on terrains and present an overview of algorithms to tackle such problems on triangulated irregular networks and regular square grids.

Abstract

Several environment applications require the computation of visibility information on a terrain. Examples are optimal placement of observation points, line-of-sight communication, and computation of hidden as well as scenic paths. Visibility computations on a terrain may involve either one or many viewpoints, and range from visibility queries (for example, testing whether a given query point is visible), to the computation of structures that encode the visible portions of the surface. In this paper, the authors consider a number of visibility problems on terrains and present an overview of algorithms to tackle such problems on triangulated irregular networks and regular square grids.

Keywords

Computer Science