Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ing, the pre-existing picture and, on the other, it has a normative reading since the model
claims to be followed.” (Van den Berg et al. 2006, p. 43)
Due to the long process of production, painted representations are not just under-
stood as representing an instant view of the landscape, but that much thought was
devoted towards rules of composition. Regarding photography, the composition
work is usually not given as much consideration, although we can expect most
residents in western societies to know about possibilities to digitally manipulate
pictures due to the distribution of home user manipulation software.
The training of landscape architects devotes much time to the teaching of aes-
thetic values, which are assumed to be measurable and usually studied in psycho-
logical surveys (cf. Daniel 2001). Reflection on decisions concerning the choice of
locality, viewpoint, focus, and thus the discussion of ethical questions, is scarce.
In that respect Sheppard (2001, p. 183) suggests “developing a code of ethics” and
thereby establishing some sort of “guidance for crystal ball gazers”. He concludes
that the aim should be the production of an “honest and neutral visual representa-
tion of the expected landscape” (Sheppard 2001, p. 196). Therefore, he suggests
five principles as a code of ethics for the use of visualisation technology, including
accuracy, representativeness, visual clarity, interest, and legitimacy. Concerning
representativeness, Sheppard claims that visualisations “should represent typical
or important views/conditions of the landscape” (Sheppard 2001, p. 194). E.g.
residents could be consulted to identify important viewpoints. In terms of “inter-
est”, the author states that “the visualization should engage and hold the interest of
the audience” (Sheppard 2001, p. 194); however, current technologies are likely to
produce over-stimulation and to carry metaphors. Further, errors and degrees of
uncertainty should be disclosed. Sheppard's evaluation of incorporating ethics into
the training of practitioners is yet pessimistic (2001, p. 192), especially because
many of those producing visualisations never participated in any training and ac-
quired their skills through self-education.
Following the approaches by Lange and Al-Kodmany, visualisation techniques
enable stakeholders (and developers in the latter case) to understand difficult data
on projects in the planning stage. As an expert in imaging software, Lange is espe-
cially concerned with the question of how to provide ever more realistic views on
the landscape and claims that images should feed into the planning procedure at an
early stage. Al-Kodmany's study showed the benefits of producing project simula-
tions in collaboration with residents. These two approaches of using imaging tech-
nology in environmental planning are thus diverse. However, we can consider
Lange's idea of feeding manipulated images into the planning procedure at an
early stage as a normal case. This raises the question how images are actually pro-
duced if they are not a result of collaborative planning.
In her ethnographic studies, Büscher (2006) observes practitioners producing
photographic material for visual manipulation. She describes the difficulties prac-
titioners face when trying to identify and capture viewpoints suitable for the pur-
pose of manipulation and how perception of the target area is bound to movement
around the place. In the first case of her study, landscape architects and visualisa-
tion specialists preliminarily decided on possible viewpoints from maps and aerial
photographs (from here on referred to as aerials). For instance aerials were under-
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