The analysis of wind project visual impact assessments (VIAs) is dominated by photosimulations at a limited number of viewpoints. While wind project VIAs typically include a cumulative viewshed map, they fail to integrate information about distance zone, visible exposure and project extent into a useful measure of visual impact. As a result, the quality of the spatial analysis of visual impacts is of limited value.

This study presents an approach to assessing the visual prominence of individual wind turbines based on their distance from the viewer and the turbine’s visual exposure. These results provide useful guidance concerning which turbine locations should be permitted. Several ways to combine the impact of individual turbines into a map of visual impact are evaluated. The contrast rating of photosimulations at 17 viewpoints is used as the criterion to validate these maps. The results show significant improvement over the traditional cumulative viewshed map. The contrast ratings are also used to calibrate mapped levels of visual impact.

风能项目视觉影响评估 (VIA) 的分析以有限数量的视点的光模拟为主。虽然风能项目 VIA 通常包括累积视域图，但它们未能将有关距离区域、可见暴露和项目范围的信息整合到有用的视觉影响度量中。因此，视觉影响的空间分析质量价值有限。

本研究提出了一种方法来评估单个风力涡轮机的视觉突出度，基于它们与观察者的距离和涡轮机的视觉曝光。这些结果提供了有关应允许哪些涡轮机位置的有用指导。评估了将单个涡轮机的影响组合成视觉影响图的几种方法。以 17 个视点的光模拟对比度等级作为验证这些地图的标准。结果表明，与传统的累积视域图相比有显着改进。对比度等级也用于校准视觉冲击的映射级别。