Geoscientific Model Development
Geoscientific Model Development
GMD
Articles | Volume 15, issue 17
Articles | Volume 15, issue 17
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6817-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6817-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 15, issue 17
Model description paper
 | Highlight paper
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08 Sep 2022
Model description paper | Highlight paper |  | 08 Sep 2022

HORAYZON v1.2: an efficient and flexible ray-tracing algorithm to compute horizon and sky view factor

Christian R. Steger, Benjamin Steger, and Christoph Schär

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Latest update: 21 Jul 2025
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Executive editor
Finding the horizon is commonplace for humans, and evocative when imagining journeys on the coast, in the mountains, or in endless plains. This paper shows a way to optimize a machine's ability to complete the same task, with the goal of bettering our ability to understand nature and climate.
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Short summary
Terrain horizon and sky view factor are crucial quantities for many geoscientific applications; e.g. they are used to account for effects of terrain on surface radiation in climate and land surface models. Because typical terrain horizon algorithms are inefficient for high-resolution (< 30 m) elevation data, we developed a new algorithm based on a ray-tracing library. A comparison with two conventional methods revealed both its high performance and its accuracy for complex terrain.
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