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This thesis explores the hypothesis that current industry standard methods used to visualise environmentally hazardous or historically significant shipwrecks can be improved by adopting a number of new, aesthetically considered, methods. The thesis describes the development of occlusion objects, locoramps and the use of digital cinematography, as methods that the author proposes to improve the 3D visualisation of point cloud data from multibeam sonar. Case studies were selected as the basis for experimentation; they include HMS Royal Oak in Orkney and SS Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary. The author collaborated with a multi-disciplinary team of forensic maritime archaeologists, marine surveyors and salvage experts to gain access to unique shipwreck sites and the high resolution sonar data gathered from them. Through experimentation with the data, occlusion objects, locally oriented colour ramps (locoramps) and improved depth cueing through digital cinematography were developed and applied in 3D visualisations of the case study wrecks. A real-time application WreckSight was created to exploit the new methods. The resulting 3D visualisations of the wrecks were evaluated by a number of target audience groups by means of an interactive questionnaire that allows a direct comparison of data presented using the new methods with traditional display methods. Analysis of the resulting data shows a statistical significance that supports the hypothesis. The author proposes that the new methods constitute new knowledge in the 3D visualisation of multibeam sonar data of shipwrecks.

In this thesis the taxation of North Sea oil is found to deter oilfield investment substantiaty - investment which it pursued would bring about Pareto benefits. Analysis of both the comparative static tax effects and the dynamics of taxation on oilfield development decisions reveals the nature of the deterrent, while a specially developed econometric model is used to quantify the impact of the tax structure and of tax changes on recoverable reserves. By detailing the mechanisms through which taxation distorts the allocation of investment resources away from North Sea developments, the thesis stresses that individual tax clauses tend not to perform the roles allotted to them and that tax changes alter the economics of oil projects in ways and in magnitudes that do not seem to be realised. Hence, not only is the nature of these effects misunderstood, but the extent oi these effects is much more damaging than commonly appreciated. These findings are reached by following the principles laid out in the early chapters which suggest that, if an improvement in the allocation of resources is to occur, laise beliets must be reclined. In particular, the inconsistencies between the targets and instruments of North Sea policy suggest there are false beliets about the need to stimulate development decisions and about the role of taxation - suggestions which are confirmed in the detailed research of the thesis. Having condemned existing North Sea oil tax policy, a practical, feasible and attainable alternative to the current tax system, that would not distort investment decisions so severely, is recommended.

High-resolution subsea surveying offers new opportunities to explore difficult or hazardous underwater environments and, when using multi-beam sonar, provides three-dimensional bathymetric data for visualisation. The primary focus of this practice-led research is whether the 3D visualisation and grading of subsea survey data can be developed beyond current industry practices. Three commercial case studies and their resulting datasets were used: Troll, an oil and gas field near Norway; Greater Gabbard, an offshore wind farm near England; and Gullfaks, an oil and gas field near Norway. This investigation is structured using the author’s Explore Review Create methodology – an iterative multi-method approach with contributory elements including action research and reflective practice. The research is supported by an exploration and review of relevant literature, comparing existing visualisation techniques and identifying a lack of consistency in evaluating or grading subsea survey data. Three case studies follow, presenting and evaluating the application of a variety of 3D visualisation techniques including some which go beyond those readily adopted in the offshore industry, such as the use of 3D printing. Finally, a fourth research chapter examines how the state of data can be assessed and proposes a scale by which future data could be graded – the DUNDEE DATA GRADING SCALE. The author proposes that the work undertaken during each of these three case studies provides new knowledge in improving the application of 3D visualisation techniques to subsea survey data. As a result of this new knowledge, the DUNDEE DATA GRADING SCALE is offered as a first step towards improving data capture and quality awareness by providing an improved understanding of what will be required to produce quality 3D visualisations from each dataset, with additional clarity in how to achieve this by applying a broader range of visualisation tools.

The art practice of this PhD seeks to promote understanding of the historical context and cultural heritage of the whaling industry of South Georgia Island through a gallery based exhibition of a combination of digital art, olfactory installation, and theatrical performance concerning South Georgia whaling. These representations aim toward a gestalt effect that is complementary to existing representations and accounts of South Georgia. Performative methods aim to reveal a reflexive relationship between the phenomenological experiences of forming a sense of place and how we interact with the world. The research investigates sense of place visualization for the shore-based industrial whaling station remains of South Georgia Island from a phenomenological position. The whaling stations on South Georgia were in operation from 1904 to 1965 before being abandoned, and at times these stations were the epicentre of commercial whaling in the sub-Antarctic and Antarctic. Relatively infrequent visitors to the island largely consists of tourists, military, and scientific personnel—the island has no native or permanent population. The area is remote and possesses a unique sensitive environment regarding native flora and fauna, making mass tourism highly unlikely. Inherent in this research is a focus on how representation and visualization—often as memory—reflexively coincide and especially on how this relationship establishes the foundation for technological evocation of embodied virtual experience. This thesis contributes a deeper understanding of sense of place visualization through practice by delivering spatial and sensory information that promote empiricist understandings of time, locational information, spatiality, and sensory derived material characteristics involved in place. This information is then bound with cognitive information originating with the visitor as well as that delivered by exhibits that function as narrative transmissions of constructed cultural understandings of place. A reflexive and reflective aspect is identified as promotion of critical metacognitive visualization, which fosters understanding of individual sense of place formation with an emphasis on embodiment. These categories of approach mix within the exhibition to provide a surrogate place experience through technological means that performs the function of sense of place visualization in lieu of actual experience in the original location. Those with actual place location experience who visit the surrogate gallery place, gain an opportunity to reactivate their original memories and extend their sense of place impression of South Georgia. This thesis also makes an original contribution by adapting existing qualitative phenomenological reduction methods (Moustakas, 1994) to a performative art practice as research application.

Aerial photography and digital visualisation technologies are commonly used to reveal and interpret archaeological sites and landscapes. These methods afford a clarity and overview that has considerable advantages in heritage visualisation. Despite this, both technologies offer a view that is distanced from the grounded experiences that are integral to heritage sites and landscapes. This tension, between visualisation technologies and lived experience, is significant because the experiences of visiting these places are a valuable common platform - shared by specialists and general audiences alike - for communicating archaeological narratives. Beyond this, such tensions have been central to debates within landscape archaeology about how embodied perspectives on the one hand, and the conventions of visual representation on the other, might affect archaeological interpretations. This thesis investigates the hypothesis that creative practice can serve to bridge the gap between visualisation technologies and lived experience, ultimately providing more powerful and meaningful visualisations of landscape heritage. This is possible because aerial and digital visualisations can and do go beyond topographical representation and respond to the aesthetic and emotive dimensions of landscape. Aerial photographs and digital models resist the visual modes of modernity despite their technological premise. The meanings that they transmit draw not only from the visual language of aerial photography and digital media but also from the viewer's prior experience of landscape and flight. It is within this context that this study attempts to better understand the relationship between visualisation technologies, creative practice, and the lived experience of landscape. To do this the author adopts the role of research-practitioner in order to explore and demonstrate the arguments through the creative application of aerial photography and digital visualisation technologies. This practice combines methods from archaeological survey, and approaches from visual effects filmmaking, with an aesthetic inspired by artist-photographers like Marilyn Bridges, Emmet Gowin and Patricia Macdonald. These creative practitioners have adopted the aerial view to portray landscapes with intimacy, agency and dynamism. The practice aims to work from an immersed or insider's view, drawing influence from Tim Ingold's notion of the "dwelling perspective". A main case study is undertaken at the Iron Age hillfort site of the Caterthuns in Angus, Scotland, with supporting case studies at the prehistoric site of Links of Notlland in Orkney and additional hillfort sites in Strathearn. Through this hands-on experience the aim is to better understand how novel approaches to practice can improve landscape heritage visualisation in an interdisciplinary context.