Policy, Rural Planning, TrueViewVisuals, VentusAR

SNH Trials of TrueViewVisuals


Scottish Natural Heritage have been trialling TrueViewVisuals and how it can be used when considering the potential landscape and visual impacts of various projects.

Fish Farms

For the purposes of this trial they looked at a fish farm development off the west coast of Scotland and explored how TrueViewVisuals (TVV) could be used to aid the assessment of landscape and visual impacts in the field.

Using the ‘Buildings’ tool in the TVV portal, SNH created a fish farm model consisting of 12 circular pens and a feeding barge. They made the circular pen structures 5m in height to reflect the potential visual impact of the fish farm netting.

Fish Farm 3

Inaccessible Site Visit

SNH also wanted to consider how TrueViewVisuals might work from areas where typical viewpoints were more difficult to obtain, for example from locations at sea or areas of inaccessible coast line.  The area selected was steep and difficult to access by foot and so the option was taken to access the fish farm visuals from locations at sea and visit the site by boat.

Fish Farm 1

Becky Rae, a SNH Planning and Renewables Graduate Placement, made this boat journey alongside three of her colleagues in order to view the site. Her primary role on this trip was to trial TrueViewVisuals in the field.

Benefit and Use

Using the application was quite challenging under these conditions as the boat was constantly moving; making it difficult to position the tripod and iPad at the correct angle to capture the viewpoints. However, the software is designed to allow for post-processing from the gallery mode.  Becky was able to fix any calibration issues back in the office and create renders that provided a good visual impression of the scale of the fish farm in relation to the landscape.  On site, the iPad allowed her to be flexible with the visuals, as she was able to document viewpoints from a range of different angles, with the added potential to access other digital documents relating to the application and use the iPad as a mobile office tool.

Following the completion of the trial, Becky said:

“Using the TrueViewVisuals Software I was able to rapidly capture a variety of different visuals in the field. Being able to revisit these images off-site also proved valuable when it came to identifying and discussing the potential visual impacts of the development on the surrounding landscape”

If you would like to see how TrueViewVisuals can help you visualise the impact of your developments, please feel free to call 0141 374 2741 or email hello@trueviewvisuals.com