Methodological proposal of creating 3D terrain models in Unreal Engine 4, to be used in surveys for wind farms visual assessments

David Kruchten

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This diploma thesis targets the issue of the visual impact surveys of wind turbines innatural landscapes and how game engine technology could supplement it. Societiesaround the world are or will be dealing with the impact of climate change, particularlyas a consequence of Co2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuel for energygeneration (coal and gas fired power plants) to transportation (combustion engines).Nations are recognizing that it is in their interest to try and combat this for issuesranging from health, economic, and a moral standpoint. To combat climate-changemany nations have embraced renewable energy generation, from solar voltaic arrays,geothermal heating, and wind, the most prevalent and ancient technique of harvestingand harnessing energy. Wind “farms” have become a common presence on thelandscape, often in natural areas, resulting in controversy. To better understand howthe public feels about the presence and placement of wind turbines, governments,universities, and corporations have conducted preference surveys to capture publicopinion with the intention for crafting policies for their placement and better designsolutions for their appearance. Surveys, however, can be biased from their wordingor the framing of the picture used to show the placement and associated impact. Forthese reasons, it was decided to see if a gaming engine and 3-D simulations would bebeneficial to creating a less bias perspective from that of a static “Photo-shopped”image that is more commonly used to elicit viewer responses.This study evaluates the uses of the Unreal Engine 4, which is a well-known 3-D gameengine, to recreate three sites and compare them to real images/video to see if thiswould be a viable way to supplement surveys. A survey was created that evaluated thesimulated videos created through Unreal Engine 4 to actual site videos. The purposeof the survey was to measure the viability of using simulated video to show how a landscape appearance may alter after building wind turbines. The proposed gamingtechnology offers an opportunity for individuals to control what they see in theirsurroundings and help reduce the bias that comes when preparing survey questions orphotographs.

Keywords

Wind turbine, Game engine, Simulated video

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 17. 4. 2018

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Peter Kumble, Ph.D.
• Reader: Vítězslav Moudrý, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Master programme / field:
Landscape Engineering / Landscape Planning