Now I love MSE2 Washington State, but I'd like an explanation of this supposed 50cm/pixel source advertisement.  It's is clearly not 50cm/pixel source.

 

I mapped a very small portion south of Seattle from Bing maps at a resolution of 1 meter/pixel, which should be less quality than the advertised 50cm source from MSE2.  However, what we see is clearly not the case.

 

 

 

Being just south of Seattle, this should all be high quality scenery.  Perhaps Sim Savvy can explain since he's the maker. 

I thought this was covered in another thread. The source data may be 50cm, but the image is down-sampled to 1m. I don't think they're doing anything overly clever in the downsampling process. A downsampled 50cm source to 1.2m will not have the same visual acuity as a 1:1 mapping of an original 1m image - not without some good filtering and non-linear sampling methods in place (which I don't think they are).

 

I've also noticed, with only a few exceptions, that the advertising blurb for all MSE 2 states promotes statewide 50cm or better coverage when it really isn't (in most cases, it's a mix of 50cm and 1m - so I agree with you, it is very misleading). I would expect Seattle to have a wealth of high-res data available, however. That said, it looks like you're not seeing the highest LOD in that image, so it's unclear if you're fighting the scenery or the sim. I would expect something a little closer to this in your sim (taken near KBED in Boston)? It took a while for this to fully "res-in" for me. Most areas do NOT have this level of visual acuity, however, and are somewhere in between what you've shown and what's shown here. I would expect Seattle to be close to this though.

 

 

 

Uncompressed:

 

http://btfy.me/x68yqh

 

For comparison, here is a similar geographical swatch from near Asheville, NC (from my newly purchased MSE NC). This is what I would consider "typical" MSE. Clearly, there's a marked difference - both advertise 50cm quality so you can't use this to gauge "quality". Add to that, not all source data - even at the same resolution - isn't of the same fidelity. Contrast, color balance, haze, and time-of-day all play into it. Northern Utah, for example, would be stunning if it wasn't so badly tinted. I mean, lime green Wasatch? C'mon

 

At 3000' or higher, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference though. I think this represents the lion's share of the VFR market and is who MSE is catering to.

 

 

How would the scene not be fully realized? The area of higher quality scenery in my pic is extremely small, it is the block that I took from Bing at 1 meter. The less resolved scenery around it is MSE2, which was fully resolved. I think that should be readily understood and clearly seen.

 

Even if their source was 1 meter, it STILL isn't as clear as my 1 meter source. No, I think they are very misleading here.

 

 

Also, your pic of Seattle there is zoomed out too far, which makes all the difference if you're trying to compare to mine. In fact, post a pic of the very best of Seattle, and we will compare it to Bing at 1 meter. But to be fair, you need to zoom in quite far, just like I did above.

Also, your pic of Seattle there is zoomed out too far

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I don't have Seattle in MSE (yet) so I can only offer conjecture based on areas I do own. The first screenshot above is from MSE Boston. The point I was trying to make is that, despite what they advertise, not all "50cm sources" are created equal in the MSE universe. I was agreeing with you that there is a truth in advertising issue here that leaves something to be desired. That said, for the typical VFR pilot who doesn't want to drop $1500 and 10TB of storage, with a few exceptions, I think MSE hits their market pretty well. Nap-of-the-earth (below 1000' AGL) and whirlybird fliers will never be satisfied with it. Better source imagery (image fidelity, not necessarily resolution) and better sampling/filtering/color balancing algorithms would help - which is what I think they're trying to do with the UltraRes series.

 

For what it is, I'm content with 90% of it. I'm not trying to read someone's license plate Do wish they would represent the actual "in-game" image fidelity in their advertising. Side-by-side comparison - similar to what you've done - of a comparable Bing or Google image is one way they could do this (and perhaps at 3 different altitudes) since quality and expectation are highly subjective.