Step 3 – defining observation points

Observation points play an important role in visual exploration of modern cityscapes. Usually, they are represented by the highest points in an area that provide the most spectacular views. Therefore, viewing platforms in the city are usually located on rooftops. In this section, we are going to create a layer that contains several prospective viewing platforms through the following steps:

1. Creating an empty vector layer

2. Populating it with some points that represent the highest buildings

3. Providing them with the information on height from the buildings_footprint layer

Creating an empty vector layer

To create a vector layer, go to Layer | Create layer. There are three options available here:

• New Shapefile Layer: Also accessible by the Ctrl + Shift + N keyboard shortcut, this creates a new empty shapefile layer.

• New SpatiaLite Layer: Also accessible by the Ctrl + Shift + A keyboard shortcut, this creates an empty SpatiaLite layer within a specified SpatiaLite database...