VIESORE - Visual Impact Evaluation System for Offshore Renewable Energy

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Project Overview

The United States Department of Interior (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) faces increasing interest in the use of waters under its jurisdiction for offshore renewable energy development and continues to conduct studies necessary to evaluate and process potential applications for offshore wind, wave, tidal flow, and ocean current energy generation facilities. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) ensures that proposed projects meet all applicable environmental laws and regulations and has need of an in-house system to evaluate visual impacts of these facilities.

The Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) at the University of Arkansas and Argonne National Laboratory's Environmental Sciences Division (EVS), in response to the Study Opportunity Developing Environmental Protocols and Monitoring to Support Ocean Renewable Energy and Stewardship (#M10PS00152) Topic 6: Renewable Energy Visual Evaluations, propose to develop the Visual Impact Evaluation System for Offshore Renewable Energy. The proposed system will allow an MMS user to design the spatial layout and content of an offshore facility, import and prepare geospatial data that will affect visibility, run a series of sophisticated visual analyses, define atmospheric, lighting and wave conditions and, finally generate one or a series of realistic visualizations from multiple viewpoints. Output will be in the form of maps, tabular reports and high-quality rendered images. All of this will be accomplished within a familiar ArcGIS 10.0 interface. Custom middle-ware will reduce the complexity of state-of-the-art visualization packages by using simplified parameter inputs and predefined parameter sets tuned for offshore visualizations. The system could be used to evaluate photomontages and zones of visual influence (ZVIs) findings prepared as part of submitted environmental impact statements (EISs) or to independently assess proposed facilities.

VIESORE system architecture centered around ArcGIS 10.0 and Vue 10 Infinite.

Project Objectives and Requirements

The proposed offshore renewable energy facility visual impact evaluation system will consist of a landscape visualization system (Vue 10 Infinite) controlled by and integrated with a custom Add-In/Toolbox for ArcGIS Desktop 10.0 specifically designed to:

Enable spatial design of offshore facility
Import geospatial data
Allow user control of atmospheric, lighting, and wave conditions
Generate spatially accurate and realistic visualizations
Output reports and images
Provide a user-friendly interface

Vue simulations. At left is a coarse rendering show offshore wind turbines under clear visibility conditions. At right, a photo-realistic rendering of offshore wind turbines under poor visibility conditions.

Vue ultra-quality simulation of offshore windfarm, 60% cloud coverage.

Tools associated with this Add-In will integrate seamlessly with existing ArcGIS tools and will include help dialogs.

Approach

3D visualizations through a customized familiar GIS interface

Vue Infinite 10 3D modeling software accessed in background batch mode through Python programming language via customized, yet familiar Esri ArcGIS interface
Vue provides photorealistic renderings
User sets up real-world project data in ArcGIS interface, all data and settings get passed to Vue where visualizations are then created
Users familiar with ArcGIS interface – this eliminates need to learn Vue 3D software package

Contacts

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