Diversity in Virtual Reality Landscape Modelling Emine Mine THOMPSON and Margaret HORNE Abstract This paper examines the range of decisions that landscape architects need to consider in communicating the future of the landscape. The objective of this research paper was to investigate the issues affecting the landscape modelling process. It also aimed to provide a better understanding of the creators of landscape visualisations and the role they play in determining what audiences, often from many disciplines, see and debate. Interviews were conducted to gather ideas from practice and academia. The paper acknowledges that this was a limited exploration with the intention of establishing a base for a further study. Issues relating to the diversity of audiences, diversity of interpretation, appropriate levels of representation and representing the passage of time in VR models and technologies currently available for VR modelling were the focus of the interviews. 1 Introduction Landscape visualisation, whether it is a perspective drawing, a built physical model, a photomontage or a Virtual Reality (VR) model of a proposed scheme, focuses on what the future landscape is going to be and how the proposed scheme will impact on the existing features. Within landscape visualisation the most important two elements therefore are being able to understand the existing-the reality and envisage the future-the intended reality. As ORLAND B. et. al, (2001) point out, “the ability to imagine the reality of a design concept depends on the viewer’s experience”. As a result, any sort of visual communication where this experience is enhanced by presenting a combination of reality and the intended reality would improve, not only the lay person’s, but also the expert’s understanding of the effects, implications and opportunities of the proposed scheme. The landscape modeller therefore needs to make decisions on diverse issues to make this understanding clearer for the viewers. 2 Background 2.1 Visual Communications in Landscape Architecture Before the digital age and the use of computers in design and design representation, visual communications such as paintings, plans, sections and perspective drawings were used to provide the opportunity to observe the proposed developments. Although the use of the