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MA in Geography, Thesis

 

Ruocco, M. (2004). Human Psychological Response to Landscape Visual Filtering in Animation Design. MAThesis. Department of Geography, UC Santa Barbara, (CA) USA.

 

Abstract: Landscape is a valuable visual resource characterized by a specific degree of visual accessibility, which affects the exposure to the resource, human perception, and the outcomes of exploration. The motion along a trajectory allows the viewer to obtain a more specific view of the landscape, enhancing her information-seeking activity through a negotiation with the multiple visual aspects of the environment. As a conceptual tool, we consider this form of mediated exposure to landscape as a visual filter that selects only part of the landscape and temporarily hides the rest. This experimental study aims at verifying the hypothesis that the trajectory of the viewer on the landscape is a determinant factor in what perceptions and experiences are finally achieved. The objective is to show that the visual accessibility properties of landscape are not isotropic, but rather patterned in landscape- and trajectory-specific ways. The experiment consisted of the development of six computer graphics fly-by sequences of three different landscapes (an agricultural plain, a narrow valley, and a steep hill), chosen to represent different terrain types. Each landscape was animated at low altitude in a terrain-following mode, and at high altitude in uniform mode. In a between-subject design, two groups of participants were asked to evaluate and self-report their perceptions, aesthetical insights, spatial knowledge and sense of place impressions on the three landscape in the two altitude conditions. The results of the experiment suggest that the visual landscape is patterned in terms of how accessibility determines experience, since there are differences in specifically predicted classes of responses. For example, the effect of mountain sheltering is felt only at low altitude in a sheltered terrain, and not in any other condition. The landscape seems to offer a diferent face (in the many dimensions that are considered) according to the trajectory of motion from which it is seen.

 

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Abstract - Sample materials