Visibility and Dead-Zones in Digital Terrain Maps

Abstract

The problem of detecting the visible and hidden areas of a topographic surface from a given viewpoint is well known, and has applications in GIS and other fields. The computational geometry literature is rich with solutions based on a polygonal representation of the surface. This work confronts the problem by working directly on the Digital Elevation Map which represents the terrain surface. We present an algorithm that processes discrete lines of sight from the viewpoint to the surface perimeter, and tests the unit-sized terrain elements along the discrete cross-sections defined by these lines. The algorithm is very efficient, performing O(n) testing operations, consisting of a few additions and no more than one multiplication each, where n is the number of the terrain elements in the map.