Tradeoffs when Multiple Observer Siting on Large Terrain Cells

This paper demonstrates a toolkit for multiple observer siting to maximize their joint viewshed, on high-resolution gridded terrains, up to 2402 × 2402, with the viewsheds’ radii of up to 1000. It shows that approximate (rather than exact) visibility indexes of observers are sufficient for siting multiple observers. It also shows that, when selecting potential observers, geographic dispersion is more important than maximum estimated visibility, and it quantifies this. Applications of optimal multiple observer siting include radio towers, terrain observation, and mitigation of environmental visual nuisances.