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Introduction
The dense urban environment is a core problem of our times, whose significance will grow in the future. Openness to near and distant views influences the environmental quality in a densely built urban environment and is reflected in many cases in real estate values. It is well known that people are willing to pay a premium for a preferred view, and this common knowledge has been backed up by research (Benson et al , 1998). The shape of buildings and their positional relationship to each other has a great influence on spatial openness to near and to distant views, and being able to quantify the contribution of the spatial openness would be an important input to the planning, designing and sustaining of an urban environment.
Density and environmental quality
There is a close relation between density, environmental and economic attractiveness, and an affinity and dependency between urban density and urban environmental quality. Environmental quality is a result of the urban development and its density, and the availability of natural resources. Waterfronts are one of the most attractive environments. Financial forces are interested in such attractive locations that may be translated into economic terms, such as the rise of real estate value of land and built up areas that benefit from accessibility and visual relations with the coast.
Precedent research
Empiric visual evaluation (Saburo et al , 1994; Hidetoshi et al , 1995; Kfir, 2001; Yoshiyuki et al , 1997) concluded that the visual openness to scenery, especially to water, has a great influence on the satisfaction of the residents. Most of it is due to the view from the windows facing the water and also the knowledge of being close to the water. Satisfaction has a direct impact on the market price of the real estate value. Willingness to pay for the water view varies according to the location and relation with the water (Feitelson, 1990) and landscape visibility had a strong influence in determining house prices (Oh and Lee, 2002).
Recently, there has been a revival of interest in visibility analysis of architectural configuration and various attempts have been made to develop automated tools for assistance in architecture and urban research and plan development. Benedikt (1979) was the first to introduce the 'ISOVIST',...