In this essay we review the major developments in the history and techniques of landscape visibility analysis, providing a number of examples and identifying a few critical challenges to the community of those who would seek to evaluate visibility—and related characteristics such as visual quality or preference—in landscapes. We argue that visibility per se is a necessary prerequisite, but insufficient in itself, as a basis for the common planning, design, and public policy questions in the context of which many visibility analyses are instigated.
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