Military Landscapes
Military software may prove useful to landscape architects.

By James L. Sipes, ASLA

Diamond Visionics

For landscape architects, 3-D modeling has always been difficult because we work in a dynamic, ever-changing environment, and the level of detail needed to accurately and realistically represent this environment is staggering. A single tree complete with branches, twigs, and leaves has more polygons than an entire city of 3-D buildings.

What we need is cutting-edge technology that is powerful and fast enough to render highly detailed terrain models, complex landscape features, and even the smallest details in the landscape, such as grass, ground cover, rocks, and wildflowers. One of my biggest frustrations is that as a profession we don’t have the resources to develop the software we need, and we have to find a way to adapt software developed by other professions.

But there is one group with the funding and resources to develop the software needed by landscape architects, and that is the military. Cutting-edge graphics technology is required to meet the rapidly changing demands of military training, and many of these applications would be ideal for modeling the kinds of complex landscape scenes that landscape architects work with on a daily basis.

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