I have been trying to get the story on this new thing FSGenesis has been throwing out there called NextMAP which according to FlightSim renders Europe in a stunning 9.8m Mesh which is incredible detail. Most of us know with high res meshes can come some really bad problems such as the infamous plateauing of airports amongst other undesirable things. I was wondering if anyone has used this and how it stacks up to their previous products as well as FSGlobal Ultimate, anyone?

NextMap isn't new but it is very good.. The airport plateau problem still exists however.

USA 10m mesh free here.  Europe is 30m

 

http://simviation.com/1/browse-Terrain+Mesh-64-29

9.8 ms? That's stunning! However, I can't see how installing that resolution mesh will give anything other than headaches regarding airport plateaus. I understand that one of the other products, is it Genesis (?) comes with some kind of editing option to correct any airport errors. It may be that there's some third party app somewhere that can do the same kind of thing when using an alternative mesh product. But hey, 9.8ms is unbelievable!

USA 10m mesh free here.  Europe is 30m

 

http://simviation.com/1/browse-Terrain+Mesh-64-29

 

I actually have used that mesh and there are plateau problems all over the place, given it is freeware. however what killed it for me was in south florida there are these spikes that shoot up out of the ground and go to about 75,000 feet, after seeing this I completely uninstalled every bit of Raimondo Taburet's meshes other than Alaska and Hawaii which seem to be pretty darn good.

I actually have used that mesh and there are plateau problems all over the place, given it is freeware. however what killed it for me was in south florida there are these spikes that shoot up out of the ground and go to about 75,000 feet, after seeing this I completely uninstalled every bit of Raimondo Taburet's meshes other than Alaska and Hawaii which seem to be pretty darn good.

oh okay I haven't been to Florida yet. So far Europe and Asia is not to bad but I also have genisis world mesh that 70m? and that may help in flattening out

 

I have also increased the tree cell size in fsx.cfg and Asia with Europe looks quite stunning

however what killed it for me was in south florida there are these spikes that shoot up out of the ground and go to about 75,000 feet, after seeing this I completely uninstalled every bit of Raimondo Taburet's meshes other than Alaska and Hawaii which seem to be pretty darn good.

Those anomalies are quite unfortunate elements in many freeware meshes, I've noticed. I just found three huge spikes in one otherwise great freeware SE Asia mesh just outside Danang, Vietnam and there are probably a lot more. Justin from FSGenesis once explained that it is huge and tedious job to remove all the measurement errors from the original data. They exist always in every data set in various amounts. IMO fixed anomalies are perhaps the main reason to purchase some payware mesh, because many free alternatives deliver otherwise similar accuracy. It is still good we have alternatives and I wish that freeware devs keep pushing great stuff for us.

I have all FSG NextMap for the EU and I fly all over the EU.  While I pretty much only fly in and out of major airports at 30,000'+ (PMDG MD11, CS MD80, ES CX750) I have seen very few airports with plateaus.

 

FSG NM does not do much where the terrain is pretty flat (north western France, Belgium, etc.), but once you start getting into the hills and then the Alps it really makes a difference.  But even in western France it will make real small rivers and stuff like that stand out more simply because there is more of a bank to the river.

I would drop mad cash if FSGenesis or any other developer released worldwide hi res mesh with elevation fixes incorporated globally. It can be done!!! My wallet is open. 

I bought the NextMap Europe bundle ages ago....I'm just saying...very nice.

I would drop mad cash if FSGenesis or any other developer released worldwide hi res mesh with elevation fixes incorporated globally. It can be done!!! My wallet is open. 

 

 

yes it can http://www.airportdesigneditor.co.uk/

Not hard at all, open the airport, go to tools, change airport altitude

 

Plateaus are not issues IMO, they are the side effect of quality mesh

 I had Nextmap Europe installed but found the airport plateaus problem to be pretty bad. I know my way around ADE pretty well and it's not a guaranteed fix. It was easier to just go without mesh.

 I had Nextmap Europe installed but found the airport plateaus problem to be pretty bad. I know my way around ADE pretty well and it's not a guaranteed fix. It was easier to just go without mesh.

 

I have to say Dave, that is more or less my own feeling, regretable, but one I think I will take to rid myself of any headaches. I only ever installed one mesh product and that was NextMAP for Spain. The first time I used it was flying into Alicante, and yes, there it was, an elevation issue with a horrible cliff running around the perimeter of the airport! So IMO, unless the elevation issue can be 100% fixed, then I'm not interested. Life's too short!

I installed NextMap Europe and had much the same experience as others above. So I backed off to the previous version of FSG mesh, which seems to be OK.

As someone pointed out, plateaus are simply a result of higher resolutin mesh, not a glitch or anomaly like spikes on some meshes. FSX default mesh is for USA 38m, for Europe, Mexico and Canada it is 76m and for rest of the world it is as low as 306m. FSGenesis world base mesh sets resolution to 76m, if I remember correctly, and it is huge improvement to most of the world. At 76m it is very unlikely you get at least bad visible plateaus. IMO 76m is at best just decent and the difference to more precise meshes is huge. I have chosen to use high resoltion meshes as plateaus look bothering only quite short of time of the flight during landing. So, either you opt to use realistic terrain contours (which are important at least for me), go on with low resolution mesh or use high resolution meshes and start adjusting the airports, if elevation is a problem. In most cases, elevation issues are quite small and if you have some favorite airpoort or two suffering the problem, it is quite possible to edit them to your needs.