Using Laser Scanning to Produce 3D Isovists of Real Environments

This paper is essentially a technical guide to laser scanning for real-world, two-dimensional isovist creation. The paper covers what is laser scanning, good scanning practice and then describes how to use the resultant data to recreate an isovist directly from noisy, real-world scan data. We will demonstrate how two different isovists can be created: the traditional 2D isovist, and a weighted isovist generated from the surface of a sign, display or shop frontage. This second isovist is weighted by the viewing angle of someone looking at the sign or display. Future areas of research identified from this paper include: work on 3D isovist representations and methods to efficiently process the point cloud data (produced by the scanner) in order to calculate a volumetric isovist; using the colour data, also captured by the scanner, in order to generate potential, colour-based, isovist representations; future work on the placement of signs and displays for optimal efficacy.