Cultural Resources

New Fields of Vision: Using Immersive Technologies for Public Outreach, Preservation, and Environmental Management

Josh Hohn, Tom Davis, Garret Root, Dalton LaVoie

Tuesday, May 21
International Room
9:30 AM

About the Session

Technological advancements are rapidly altering the way in which we view our built and natural environments. Virtual reality (VR) platforms, data visualization, and digital modeling have become critical components of project engineering and development. Increasingly, however, they also provide value in helping stakeholders, agencies, and even project proponents more fully understand a project’s potential effects to specific natural resources, and vice versa. Achieving a more robust, shared understanding of a project and its environment can yield greater consensus regarding potential impacts and related mitigating actions.

This panel presents specific applications of immersive technologies to projects where aesthetic, biological, and cultural resources were critical issues. The placement of photo-realistic simulations within 360-degree photographs allowed East Sacramento residents to view via VR recreational facility improvements proposed for McKinley Park as part an underground flood-control project. The development of similar imagery as a demonstration for a utility-scale wind energy project can provide clients and stakeholders the ability to see the full landscape context within which such a project would appear. The use of mobile applications and real-time data management have accelerated field biologists’ ability to relay and analyze field data during critical phases of environmental compliance projects. And three-dimensional imaging and scanning technologies, coupled with real-time visualization of their outputs, created a digital model of a 19th Century Gothic Revival style house, complete with period-specific interior recreations. This would allow regulators, the public, or other invested community groups to view and interpret an otherwise inaccessible historic house in a fully navigable, virtual reality environment.

Attendees will leave the session with a better understanding of what technologies are being applied to augment more traditional processes of understanding project effects, and how such applications might help them in their work. They’ll also have a better understanding of what may soon be possible.

About the Presenters

Josh Hohn

Josh Hohn, AICP, is the Visual Resources Practice Lead for Stantec’s Environmental Services group. He is based in San Francisco, where he leads visual impact analyses for projects throughout the US, primarily related to power generation and transmission. Trained as a city and regional planner, Josh began his career in community development and public outreach; however, he has focused on aesthetics and visual resources for most of the past decade. He has difficulty avoiding taking the scenic route.

Tom Davis

Tom Davis is a Senior Biologist at Stantec, in San Francisco. He currently manages large environmental compliance efforts for infrastructure projects for PG&E and has previously done so for Caltrans and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. He is committed to improving project efficiencies through the use of mobile applications and visual information in the delivery and processing of data. As well as being a field biologist, Tom is a graphic designer and has served as Scientific Illustrator at the California Academy of Sciences.

Garret Root

Garret Root is a Senior Architectural Historian, based in Sacramento, where he is Stantec’s Subject Matter Expert for Architectural History, and History and the Built Environment. He oversees a variety of projects across California typically related to water, power generation, and electrical transmission, where he identifies innovative ways to use technology to address preservation and appreciation of historic resources. Outside of the office, he volunteers his time working with historic preservation groups.

Dalton LaVoie

Dalton LaVoie is an Associate and landscape architect based in Stantec’s Capitol Mall office. He provides services for a broad range of public and private projects, including visual resource assessments, public parks and commercial/retail developments, streetscapes, public infrastructure facilities, waterfronts, recreational facilities, transportation plans, master planned communities, healthcare, and mixed-use developments. His work includes advancing public outreach methods/materials, technical writing/analysis, photo simulation, concept/design development, site design, construction documentation and three-dimensional modeling. Dalton is a Trustee and a Public Awareness Representative for the American Society of Landscape Architects.