Hopefully they'll do something with the DC-NYC-Boston corridor.  So overlooked!

Would also like to see a better representation of Lukla in Nepal.

I think that with worldwide satellite/aerial imagery there will be few if any forgotten lands in the new sim.  I have checked a number of areas using Bing maps and pretty much the whole world is covered.  The issue will be whether the resolution will be good enough.  For example, I zoomed in on a village in a remote part of the Brazilian jungle and could see individual dwellings, but I zoomed in to Mcmurdo Station in Antarctica and the resolution was so poor that you can't see the buildings.  Narsarsuaq airport in Greenland was another area where the resolution is poor; you can at least see the airport but no detail. 

Hopefully the resolution will improve over time as better satellite imagery becomes available and then this can be streamed to the sim.

Dave

30 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

I think that with worldwide satellite/aerial imagery there will be few if any forgotten lands in the new sim.  I have checked a number of areas using Bing maps and pretty much the whole world is covered.  The issue will be whether the resolution will be good enough.  For example, I zoomed in on a village in a remote part of the Brazilian jungle and could see individual dwellings, but I zoomed in to Mcmurdo Station in Antarctica and the resolution was so poor that you can't see the buildings.  Narsarsuaq airport in Greenland was another area where the resolution is poor; you can at least see the airport but no detail. 

Hopefully the resolution will improve over time as better satellite imagery becomes available and then this can be streamed to the sim.

It's not just the resolution, it's also height data  for both buildings and geography. Without that data, no AI in the world can guess what they should look like when flying at low altitude or parked at ground level. 

One example I keep using is the tepui (mesa) in Venezuela where Angel Falls is located. The resolution in Bing satellite view is terrible and there doesn't appear to be much if any 3D height data for the mesa. It's better in Google Earth, but the height data still isn't fine-grained enough. The whole thing falls apart if you tilt down for a full 3D view and see the waterfall image is now sideways!

The mesa formation is actually much better if you fly there in X-Plane, although the landclass vegetation doesn't look right, and the waterfall is missing because it's only terrain mesh + landclass. It still looks "plausible" and much better than Bing or Google Earth if you don't know the world's tallest waterfall should be there.

I hope MSFS can do better in remote areas like this, but it will depend on the data they have available and want to pay for.

Edited August 29, 20196 yr by Paraffin

Just now, dave2013 said:

 

GE gives a clear picture of Mc Murdo. Narsarsuaq is dark but nothing that couldn't cleaned up. The AI should give a reasonable approximation of both. 

Now, let's hope they do the clouds right at these latitudes.

21 hours ago, Paraffin said:

It's not just the resolution, it's also height data  for both buildings and geography. Without that data, no AI in the world can guess what they should look like when flying at low altitude or parked at ground level. 

One example I keep using is the tepui (mesa) in Venezuela where Angel Falls is located. The resolution in Bing satellite view is terrible and there doesn't appear to be much if any 3D height data for the mesa. It's better in Google Earth, but the height data still isn't fine-grained enough. The whole thing falls apart if you tilt down for a full 3D view and see the waterfall image is now sideways!

The mesa formation is actually much better if you fly there in X-Plane, although the landclass vegetation doesn't look right, and the waterfall is missing because it's only terrain mesh + landclass. It still looks "plausible" and much better than Bing or Google Earth if you don't know the world's tallest waterfall should be there.

I hope MSFS can do better in remote areas like this, but it will depend on the data they have available and want to pay for.

I don't expect there to be 3D terrain data for every part of the world - yet.  Things like Angel Falls may need special treatment, i.e. be hand-edited.

I think the AI engine will be able to determine, perhaps with 90% accuracy, what type of building it should place based on the roof image and its location, i.e. a building in a very small town is not likely to be a high-rise.

Of course we're all still speculating.  Whatever it is I'll bet it will be better than what we have now.

Dave

21 hours ago, domkle said:

GE gives a clear picture of Mc Murdo. Narsarsuaq is dark but nothing that couldn't cleaned up. The AI should give a reasonable approximation of both. 

Now, let's hope they do the clouds right at these latitudes.

I think HiFiSim (ActiveSky weather engine) already fixed the cloud texture compression/decompression with changing latitude issue.

I hope we don't still get the same problem with terrain textures, although using photogrammetry this shouldn't be an issue.

Dave

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

I don't expect there to be 3D terrain data for every part of the world - yet.  Things like Angel Falls may need special treatment, i.e. be hand-edited.

I think the AI engine will be able to determine, perhaps with 90% accuracy, what type of building it should place based on the roof image and its location, i.e. a building in a very small town is not likely to be a high-rise.

Of course we're all still speculating.  Whatever it is I'll bet it will be better than what we have now.

Dave

To clarify: by 3D terrain I do not mean elevation mesh, I'm talking about structures and certain geological features.

When I say "roof image" this also entails the size and shape which would be helpful in determining building type.

Dave

On 8/27/2019 at 12:29 AM, KERNEL32 said:

I mean Orbx could develop a beautiful Caribbean "True Earth", think of how the framerates wouldn't even suffer like an area such as say, London... and.. no need for 4 seasons!!!  omg. 

It likely comes down to data availability and cost of aerial imagery vs potential return on investment. The Caribbean would indeed be a wonderful region, but up until now, it's a mish-mash of poor quality orthos covered in clouds, missing areas and very little in the way of data. It's of course possible to do given enough time, money and resources and AI tech is improving all the time.

I'm interested in how it looks in the new sim considering Bing's imagery there is not the greatest either (clouds, discolouration, etc). It will be a true test of the Azure AI if it managed to clean this up nicely.

 

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

 

I appreciate very much your input Tony all the more that Orbx has been completely unresponsive on repeated requests for the Caribbean on its forums. I say Orbx because they have a de facto quasi-monopoly on regional sceneries. Very understandable but...

If the orthos are that bad (lots of clouds,I agree, the mix of humid air + small conic islands tends to do that ! ) , a nice LC region would have been a great substitute.  About the RoI, I do understand too but how many times can Orbx release  the same10-odd  regions (West coast and GB) and keep  the interest up for its regional  products ?

In any case, the forthcoming sim makes these questions of historical value only. 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 20196 yr by domkle

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

It likely comes down to data availability and cost of aerial imagery vs potential return on investment. The Caribbean would indeed be a wonderful region, but up until now, it's a mish-mash of poor quality orthos covered in clouds, missing areas and very little in the way of data. It's of course possible to do given enough time, money and resources and AI tech is improving all the time.

I'm interested in how it looks in the new sim considering Bing's imagery there is not the greatest either (clouds, discolouration, etc). It will be a true test of the Azure AI if it managed to clean this up nicely.

 

I remember Bel Geode tried Jamaica at the Global Preview Event, and he didn't say anything about a poor terrain quality.

Could be, but I've not seen any others manage to generate decent orthos for the area using Ortho4XP because of poor quality imagery, so hopefully their AI has worked some magic on it

15 minutes ago, tonywob said:

Could be, but I've not seen any others manage to generate decent orthos for the area using Ortho4XP because of poor quality imagery, so hopefully their AI has worked some magic on it

That's my hope as well 🙂