How do you guys handle your ortho sceneries?

[conura 45]

Hello all,

 

I am just wondering how you all manage ortho stuff, like the simheaven photosceneries. The problem I have is that, despite how great they are, at high altitude you can clearly see they are taken from different locations and at different times of day, and the world turns into a collection of squares of different colours. As beautiful as each of them are, as a collection they tend to kill immersion s0 much so that the default xp10 textures are superior.

 

I am considering just downloading ortho for the tile around major airports I fly into and out of, that way there wont often be so much of an issue with the grid style layout in the air and I'll get the ability to have ortho scenerio in the interesting places. does anyone else do this - what do you recommend?

 

Thanks

[Glenn_C 135]

I usually do 4 tiles around the airports I fly to at z18 or z19 and then inbetween z16

[conura 45]

I usually do 4 tiles around the airports I fly to at z18 or z19 and then inbetween z16

Out of interest, where do you get the z18 and z19 orthos from?

[tonywob 4,768]

I found in the UK that the Bing imagery was very good and almost all the same colour, but obviously there are some differences that can be noticeable when flying at high altitudes. This is just what happens with Orthoimagery (even payware stuff)

[Glenn_C 135]

Out of interest, where do you get the z18 and z19 orthos from?

I use Orthos4XP to create the scenery. Just google it.

 

 

 

[x-plane 123 61]

 

 

I use Orthos4XP to create the scenery. Just google it.

 

Is that using Bing? I've been planning on doing some around Portland.

[tonywob 4,768]

With Ortho4XP, there are quite a few sources to choose from. In the US I've seen Bing, Google and USGS imagery. When I generated Massachussets which is only 2-3 tiles, I used Bing which was the best quality. Google was good in the Grand Canyon and LA, so it takes some experimentation to get the best results. If you have the time and space you could cover the entire US (Excluding Alaska) in ZL16 and then add around ZL18 around airports and cities. 

 

I have generated all of the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden this way. For Norway and Sweden the Bing and Google imagery was awful so I had to use the local sources such as NO and SE which were very high quality. For the most part, I'd just kick off the tile generation and have a look at 1-2 of the jpegs it downloads and know from that how bad the quality is before changing sources. It's so easy to do once you've done 1 or 2 tiles that I found it quite addictive :-)

[Colonel X 1,428]

I use Orthos4XP to create the scenery. Just google it.

 

I hate Orthos but I have to admit this is some damn fine looking scenery there. I'd say together with HDR scattering, it's a death blow to P3D, and I like that.

Edited July 26, 2016 by tonywob
Removed Quoted Images

[soaring_penguin 428]

I hate Orthos but I have to admit this is some damn fine looking scenery there. I'd say together with HDR scattering, it's a death blow to P3D, and I like that. 

And you can overlay with W2XP scenery (yes, the one you "love" so much) and it blows everything else out of the water. 

What converted me to X-Plane, was the absence of blurries, I could never get rid of those in FSX, and they are most visible with photoscenery.

And photoscenery in FSX is mostly flat, lacking 3D structures.

With Ortho4xp and W2XP I get perfect coverage where I fly, I only need a whee stronger video card to get better weather (I have 2 GB GTX 650, I want to trade it in for a GTX 1060, when they come more widely available, and prices are more in the range of NVIDIA recommended prices).

[pmb 5,137]

 

I hate Orthos but I have to admit this is some damn fine looking scenery there. I'd say together with HDR scattering, it's a death blow to P3D, and I like that.

Not anyone is into making his or her own Ortho4XP sceneries himself, thus I am afraid a very few P3D users could be left.

 

Kind regrdas, Michael

[jozeff 93]

Hello guys,

 

Have been creating some tiles myself using "BI" and google source material in ortho4xp. Made some beatiful tiles os Florida and The Netherlans(where I live). Today I created a tile in Sweden around Stockholm using the "SE" map source like Tony mentioned. The tiles look sharp but there are quite a lot of color differences within tiles(squares or rectangles with sharp edges just like when you zoom in at google maps). Is there a way of blending these odd looking surfaces? I also used the "ARC" source maps but those results were even worse. Is it possible to make ortho tiles of Sweden( or any large country) that all have the same appearance?

Thank you!

 

Jozeff

[Don Quixote 76]

 The tiles look sharp but there are quite a lot of color differences within tiles(squares or rectangles with sharp edges just like when you zoom in at google maps). Is there a way of blending these odd looking surfaces? I also used the "ARC" source maps but those results were even worse. Is it possible to make ortho tiles of Sweden( or any large country) that all have the same appearance?

 

Well, you could possibly select the downloaded image files by color, then batch edit them with an image editor... but, frankly, I don't think the results would be any good. If the source material is badly discolored (or even covered by clouds/fog/smoke) no amount of editing will give them a natural coloration. Also, the color differences tend to be non-systematic, so you'd have to edit all the "border images" where two satellite images meet, manually - that would take weeks, if not months.

 

The best hope would be to find a new image provider that has better source material... But in some places of the world there just doesn't seem to be any, or at least none that is publicly available.

[jozeff 93]

Ok Don, thanks for your reply. We'll have to choose some area's that have good source material then. Have created two state of Oregon tiles today using Bing ZL18 and these look amazing! 34Gb and 2.5 hours per tile but it's worth it...

Grtz jozeff