Number of 3D cities in MS2020? - use Earth View 3D to see them!

[irrics 1,517]

16 minutes ago, Ident said:

Honestly the cities are nice, but I am more interested in the airports. My habit of flying is going from airport to airport in GA planes and I dont spend much time down low looking at cities.

Although lots of airports are right in cities however and getting the buildings very realistic and accurate nearby will be nice, especially things in approach and departure paths  

Just more and more real world building accuracy will be wonderful

[Ident 198]

1 hour ago, irrics said:

Although lots of airports are right in cities however and getting the buildings very realistic and accurate nearby will be nice, especially things in approach and departure paths  

Just more and more real world building accuracy will be wonderful

I agree but I'm more interested in seeing what they are going to do with the 3d airports more so than the cities. I get that a) not all cities need to be HD as that is something that we have always dealt with so getting a whole bunch as part of the main sim is a great start b) more cities could be added in updates from MS but they show us LAX as an airport that is nicely cluttered and detailed, now will this be the norm for most of the globe or if not then what are their plans as the way MS Maps does some of the airports looks not so good.

[bonchie 2,305]

2 hours ago, Ident said:

I agree but I'm more interested in seeing what they are going to do with the 3d airports more so than the cities. I get that a) not all cities need to be HD as that is something that we have always dealt with so getting a whole bunch as part of the main sim is a great start b) more cities could be added in updates from MS but they show us LAX as an airport that is nicely cluttered and detailed, now will this be the norm for most of the globe or if not then what are their plans as the way MS Maps does some of the airports looks not so good.

My suspicion is that at least the ground clutter and stuff will be universal. There'd be no reason for them have lower detail models everywhere else. It was the same everywhere in FSX and should be here.

I'd guess the terminals will also be more detailed in regards to base textures, building shapes, etc. compared to last generation but you aren't going to have every airport hand done obviously. Think like XP11's lego brick approach as a realistic expectation of level of detail at non-major hub airports.

Edited June 19, 2019 by bonchie

[Nagmaal 16]

I am realy surprised by the low amount of cities. Entire continents have been left out , never mind countries. No Africa , No Asia.

That being said 2 Peta-bytes sounds like a lot, but when it comes to satellite photos, it realy is not. 9 square km of 1 pixel per 10cm Satellite imagery, (this is good quality the best), is between 1 & 2 gig depending on format. A city like Houstan is 1600km. thats around 180 to 320 gig of raw, un edited, imagery. Unless my maths sucks, thats about 500 cities. A lot less if you starting ading seasons and buildings in. 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Nagmaal

[ckyliu 1,749]

1 pixel per 10 cm sounds a bit ambitious, I think 1 pixel 60cm is more like it for a wide area. But yes, 3D coverage on Bing versus Google is disappointing, in the UK there's two small areas on Bing but Google has my hometown which is not particularly significant, in addition to all our major cities.

[Nagmaal 16]

13 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

1 pixel per 10 cm sounds a bit ambitious, I think 1 pixel 60cm is more like it for a wide area. But yes, 3D coverage on Bing versus Google is disappointing, in the UK there's two small areas on Bing but Google has my hometown which is not particularly significant, in addition to all our major cities.

Your right, looked at it again, best case its 1 pixel per 30cm , 60cm in some areas. Not good guilty imagery. 

And the selection makes me think they might be using a specific satalite?

Edited June 21, 2019 by Nagmaal

[ckyliu 1,749]

At that resolution it's highly unlikely to be satellite imagery, it'll be aerial photography. Particularly for the 3D buildings, you need it from several angles to get all the building's faces and to perform the photogrammetry to a high standard, don't think that's very achievable with a satellite.

Edited June 21, 2019 by ckyliu

[Nagmaal 16]

16 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

At that resolution it's highly unlikely to be satellite imagery, it'll be aerial photography. Particularly for the 3D buildings, you need it from several angles to get all the building's faces and to perform the photogrammetry to a high standard, don't think that's very achievable with a satellite.

I stand corrected, Areal photography, more expensive and harder to come by. That might explain why the cities are so limited? 

[ca_metal 2,019]

38 minutes ago, Nagmaal said:

I am realy surprised by the low amount of cities. Entire continents have been left out , never mind countries. No Africa , No Asia.

That being said 2 Peta-bytes sounds like a lot, but when it comes to satellite photos, it realy is not. 9 square km of 1 pixel per 10cm Satellite imagery, (this is good quality the best), is between 1 & 2 gig depending on format. A city like Houstan is 1600km. thats around 180 to 320 gig of raw, un edited, imagery. Unless my maths sucks, thats about 500 cities. A lot less if you starting ading seasons and buildings in. 

They have the whole world covered, you can see it on Bing, but not all the corners will have the detail Seattle or Los Angeles have.

About the 3d cities, I'm not sure they are limited to what we see on Bing right now. I think they might have more data they don't put for public access. We will see as they share more info about the tech. 

[Superdelphinus 718]

Also I’m not sure to what extent bing maps is updated, but there could be another 18 months of map additions planned too. 

[ckyliu 1,749]

53 minutes ago, Nagmaal said:

Areal photography, more expensive and harder to come by. That might explain why the cities are so limited? 

That's exactly why. I believe it requires more cameras and photos than normal top-down imagery too, so areas that already have reasonably quality "top down" flat imagery still have to be resurveyed. And they have to wait for good weather conditions too. I have no idea how Google (or Bing) choose where to do because my hometown is all 3D with very recent imagery but neighbouring larger towns are flat.

Edited June 21, 2019 by ckyliu

[NZ255 309]

On 6/15/2019 at 4:06 AM, pracines said:

We flight simmers do not go backwards under any circumstances.

That’s why we need pushback tugs 

[Nagmaal 16]

30 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

That's exactly why. I believe it requires more cameras and photos than normal top-down imagery too, so areas that already have reasonably quality "top down" flat imagery still have to be resurveyed. I have no idea how Google (or Bing) choose where to do because my hometown is all 3D but neighbouring larger towns are flat!

I might be wrong regarding this but, Google & Microsoft don't actually own the Imagery. Its owned by Company like Digital Earth & ESRI, they used it under license. These companies take photos of areas by sectors and so on, but sometimes they get special requests to take photos of specific areas. This Data then becomes available to buy by anyone. My theory is someone requested specific imagery for your area for some reason. 

[tonywob 4,769]

53 minutes ago, Nagmaal said:

I might be wrong regarding this but, Google & Microsoft don't actually own the Imagery.

Yep they don't, it's licensed normally from other companies. e.g. Apple Maps and Bing Maps are identical in places because they license the same data. Google in the UK uses data licensed from BlueSky. GetMapping etc... Obviously nobody really knows the specifics of the licenses, but I imagine the licenses are fairly restrictive.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Much of the original imagery was also obtained for free from government agencies. The agencies paid specialized contractors to overfly their specific jurisdictions and provide imagery. Google as an example, did some cleanup on the "free" imagery (color matching and rectification of image boundaries, etc.) and then copyrighted it as their own product. After a while, governments got wise that Google was doing this and added disclaimers that the free imagery could not be part of a commercial product. This forced Google and MS to pay contractors for the imagery. Some of the older Google imagery still shows the data sources.