The Optimal D:H Ratio Assessment for Sense of Enclosure in Virtual Landscapes

Virtual landscape is going through an advancement initiated by the development of digital technologies related to virtual environments. The virtual landscape has been used as a tool to develop the real world; however, this domain itself also carries a design value. Taking advantage of the unique affordances of such environments, virtual landscape designers need to increase users' sensory, percep-tual, and attention abilities to allow cognitive relationships by implementing the theories of the physical world. This research adopts the D:H ratio principle to understand its optimal suggested values in the real world to assess the sense of enclosure in virtual landscapes. The statistical analysis of the results indicate that the optimal D:H ratios for “Open” and “Comfort” qualities of space are larger in the virtual landscape than in real-world suggestions. The perception of “Constricted” and “Human-scale” qualities in the virtual landscape is perceived differently depending on the surrounding building heights. By focusing on the D:H Ratio principle, the research results suggest that virtual landscapes fed by design disciplines such as urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture produce a more compact and holistic perspective by increasing the user-space interaction.