Visualization of Digital Terrain and Landscape Data

This book reflects a profound change that has taken place in the practice of landscape architecture and planning in the past twenty years. Traditional modes of representation – pen, pencil, watercolor, marker, et al – have been supplanted by digital modeling and animation. This transformation is not just in the medium of representation, however; it is more than a subs- tution of one marking device for another, such as may have been the case in the past when, for example, mechanical pens with cartridges replaced pens with nibs that were filled by dipping. Even changes such as that had their impacts (as longer straighter lines, for example, or more precision in details became possible) on the interplay between designer, design - dium, and designed artifact(s). The emergence of digital media as rep- sentational tools for designers has accompanied a transformation in the language of discourse in design and planning, in the very conception of the designed world we live in, and in the substance and role of the essential representations and abstractions used by planners and designers. In the past, when 2D planar representations (drawings, usually on paper) served as the conventional means of communication for designers (both with themselves and with others), physical objects or arrangements in 3D were transformed into a series of lines in 2D (plans, sections, elevations, e. g.

Rüdiger Mach
The author studied hydraulic engineering and has been engaged in CAD construction, 3D animation and image editing in a technical / scientific environment for over 15 years. He writes books about 3D visualization, and works as an engineer and lecturer in the field of technical and scientific visualization. As a senior project manager of the ViewTec Ltd., he is responsible for 3D visualization, the scientific depiction of results and everything to do with design and communication of visual problem solving.

Peter Petschek
After his studies in Germany and the USA from 1987 – 1996, the author progressed to occupational activity as a landscape architect in several offices (EDSA – Fort Lauderdale, Knoll – Sindelfingen, Kienast – Zürich) with the emphasis placed on IT implementation in free area design. In 1991 he was called as professor for technology in landscape architecture, department of landscape architecture, to HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil, Switzerland.