Dear Colleagues,

Recent publications show the emerging trend of landscape modelling and visualization in society. For example, I refer to news items on the use of digital sandboxes in secondary education to show the impact of geomorphology on hydrology and to the role of mixed reality (augmented/virtual) applications in real life planning and infrastructure management. The increasing stream of incoming (geo)data via social media and the many sensor technologies offer a surplus of options to support societally accepted landscape modeling and visualization. Parallel to this, IT applications are continuously fuelling a debate on societal usability. From this, we notice the tremendous success of geomatics and geo-information science that forward new fields of challenging research, as nicely presented by Sui (2016).

My personal quest into landscape modelling and visualization started with the work of Tomlin (1982) and preliminarily found its way by including relaxed cellular automata and trying to link with CAD. The former to simulate landscape processes in widest sense and the latter to 2- and 3-dimensionally visualize these processes in relation to the landscape as a visual and designed construct. Much later, I realized that the concepts of personal, environmental and geographic spaces do reflect such variations in visualization frameworks. The related concepts and functions have been very well-understood and integrated by computer game developers.

Very recently, Zeiger (2019) revived the role of artificial intelligence in the domain of landscape architecture. This article made highlighted the unawareness, unsolved issues and new scientific challenges that are popping up not only in landscape architecture but in the many domains that apply geo-information concepts. The V-themes of ‘big data’ are probably the accelerators of this, as illustrated by the many “point clouds” which, according to some of my peers, offer a new primitive in spatial–temporal modelling.

Nearly 20 years after the millennium congress “Digital Creativity”, with famous keynotes by Hillier, Stiny, Hadid and Steinitz, and the Digital Landscape Architecture congress series kick off by Buhmann, Ervin, Eckert and Bishop, I wonder which 6^th scientific wave of landscape modelling and visualization we may expect. Or are we already there? Landscape modelling and visualization has become an interdisciplinary playing field of peer scientists who study the integrative relations of abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic objects and processes. Studying scientific fundaments is key, as well as the intention to explore and to explain past and future landscapes given the great themes of this era, like climate change, sustainable energy and food safety.

Aim of the Special Issue

This Special Issue critically examines these key items from the perspective of the GIS/RS community. We solicit contributions related to landscape modelling and visualization approaches that present concepts, methodologies and evaluations that may represent the 6^th scientific wave. We ask especially for contributions from authors involved in landscape modelling and visualization using new experimental approaches. In line with the context and aims outlined above, we invite original research contributions on the following (and related) topics:

• Best lessons of landscape visualization and modelling?
• Integrative abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic modelling and visualization 
• New essentials for landscape modelling and visualization: agent-based modelling and machine learning
• Impact of social media on landscape modelling and visualization
• Mixed realities: an integration of digital and analogue practices
• Narrative-driven landscape modelling and visualization
• Landscape visualisation: will less be more?
• Sound-, smell-, feel- and emotion-driven landscape modelling and presentation

Dr. ir Ron van Lammeren
Guest Editor

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