In-game VS Satellite

[aleex 551]

3 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Anaga Mountains, Tenerife, Spain

 

Here we have another indication that mesh resolution might not be the highest (just look at that spire). Still looks good though.

 

Ouch... looks even at the left island. I think Google has better coverage on this area. Anyways, Bing has time for improvement. 

Edited January 19, 2020 by aleex

[Dominique_K 10,133]

3 hours ago, Shack95 said:

 

 

Here we have another indication that mesh resolution might not be the highest (just look at that spire). Still looks good though.

 

Good catch. Good enough ? Nope. we now have excellent meshes, there is no reason not to have them in FS20.

[azulkb 302]

57 minutes ago, aleex said:

Ouch... looks even at the left island. I think Google has better coverage on this area. Anyways, Bing has time for improvement. 

yes i confirm google mesh for this area is better

 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

2 minutes ago, azulkb said:

yes i confirm google mesh for this area is better

 

 

Let's hope that some smart Alpha tester will raise the issue (hint, hint ! Go for it guys ! ). We don't want to go back to 38 m or even 19 m when we can get 10 m or below  ! 

[azulkb 302]

19 minutes ago, domkle said:

Let's hope that some smart Alpha tester will raise the issue (hint, hint ! Go for it guys ! ). We don't want to go back to 38 m or even 19 m when we can get 10 m or below  ! 

main source data is bing..., the best thing is for sure is that bing can get a fresh update one day. but we have a room for tier partnair to optimize mesh in some area. in this exemple google is better, but not always the case.

anyway is not asobo job, my preference and that they still optimize everything related to the shader etc... because the meshes you can always customize afterwards.

 

()

[Shack95 2,658]

8 minutes ago, domkle said:

Let's hope that some smart Alpha tester will raise the issue (hint, hint ! Go for it guys ! ). We don't want to go back to 38 m or even 19 m when we can get 10 m or below  ! 

Agreed! Imagine doing a scenic flight over the Alps and instead of the mighty Matterhorn all you can see is a tiny stump à la Bing Maps.

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Reporting scenery errors to Asobo is probably not going to do much. They've made it clear that they're not doing any hand-made adjustments outside of points of interest, and that they'd rather push work into making the AI better at creating scenery out of Bing data. And where Bing is weak, the AI won't have much to work with. We just have to hope that Bing data gets better to match the quality of Google.

Still, if there are any glaring errors or omissions in the default scenery, I guess this is where third-party scenery developers will step in. I just hope that add-on scenery will work well with the online mode, and a good scenery library is in order.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

4 minutes ago, azulkb said:

main source data is bing..., the best thing is for sure is that bing can get a fresh update one day. but we have a room for tier partnair to optimize mesh in some area. in this exemple google is better, but not always the case.

anyway is not asobo job, my preference and that they still optimize everything related to the shader etc... because the meshes you can always customize afterwards.

Bing is not the primary source. Bing is an assembler of imagery and meshes coming from different suppliers. Asobo could  use another mesh. And I expect them to use the best on the market. 

The whole history of mesh and simming is that you cannot "always customize afterwards" (cf the dreaded troughs and plateaus when adding a better mesh in FSX or P3D). The new terrain engine which is supposed to accept sloped runways/taxiways may help but to which extent ? 

 

1 minute ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

Reporting scenery errors to Asobo is probably not going to do much. 

This is not an error, this is a design choice. And it seems to me that it is in the spirit of MS openness for this project, to say it. Loudly 😉!

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 minute ago, domkle said:

This is not an error, this is a design choice. And it seems to me that it is in the spirit of MS openness for this project, to say it. Loudly 😉!

That would be a design choice for Bing though, I think. So far it seems that Microsoft Flight Simulator is drawing its data from Bing, so whatever Bing has, the simulator will also have. Not sure if Asobo have the capability of ordering higher quality mesh or imagery, and even then they might not be able to implement it if they'd rather push their resources into training the AI. It might make more sense to report to Bing for areas of lower quality.

What's for sure is that the quality is not being artificially limited though, since the simulator will boast a texture resolution of up to 3cm per pixel, which is far higher than what we have now. It all depends on the quality of the imagery and mesh for each area.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

2 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

That would be a design choice for Bing though, I think. So far it seems that Microsoft Flight Simulator is drawing its data from Bing, so whatever Bing has, the simulator will also have. Not sure if Asobo have the capability of ordering higher quality mesh or imagery, and even then they might not be able to implement it if they'd rather push their resources into training the AI. It might make more sense to report to Bing for areas of lower quality.

What's for sure is that the quality is not being artificially limited though, since the simulator will boast a texture resolution of up to 3cm per pixel, which is far higher than what we have now. It all depends on the quality of the imagery and mesh for each area.

They will have to get better imagery than the present Bing web maps  if they want to offer ZL19 the world over. As it was reported many times here, the sharpness of some Bing maps is very much inferior.  Again, Bing is a name of an assembler which has opened a web site (simplifying here) they do not own satellites, they don’t generate imagery or mesh.

What do you mean by training the AI ? for the relief ? Extrusion ?

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

7 minutes ago, domkle said:

They will have to get better imagery than the present Bing web maps  if they want to offer ZL19 the world over. As it was reported many times here, the sharpness of some Bing maps is very much inferior.  Again, Bing is a name of an assembler which has opened a web site (simplifying here) they do not own satellites, they don’t generate imagery or mesh.

What do you mean by training the AI ? for the relief ? Extrusion ?

They didn't say that there will be 3cm per pixel resolution data all over the world, but that it can go up to that. While Bing is indeed not generating their own imagery or mesh, they are a team working on this entity, independent from Asobo. I recall an interview (I think with Phil Spencer) where he talked about how Asobo had asked Microsoft to reach with the Bing team to give them access to their data.

Training the AI is the term used when you feed an AI with data so that it can better recognise patterns and select the best execution method. In this instance, they want to feed Azure with more scenery data so that it does a more accurate job at creating scenery out of satellite imagery in the future.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

3 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

They didn't say that there will be 3cm per pixel resolution data all over the world, but that it can go up to that. While Bing is indeed not generating their own imagery or mesh, they are a team working on this entity, independent from Asobo. I recall an interview (I think with Phil Spencer) where he talked about how Asobo had asked Microsoft to reach with the Bing team to give them access to their data.

Training the AI is the term used when you feed an AI with data so that it can better recognise patterns and select the best execution method. In this instance, they want to feed Azure with more scenery data so that it does a more accurate job at creating scenery out of satellite imagery in the future.

Accessing Bing data doesn’t mean that it is the exclusive source. The Seattle area prototype to win the MS contract was made by Asobo out of Bing maps, after that I don’t remember. Gotta watch Lionel’s vid again.

I understand what AI training means and does for imagery but we are talking about mesh sharpness. AI can use the shadows to make some corrections on a coarse mesh but how far can that go compared to a finer mesh. I don’t know.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

20 minutes ago, domkle said:

Accessing Bing data doesn’t mean that it is the exclusive source. The Seattle area prototype to win the MS contract was made by Asobo out of Bing maps, after that I don’t remember. Gotta watch Lionel’s vid again.

I understand what AI training means and does for imagery but we are talking about mesh sharpness. AI can use the shadows to make some corrections on a coarse mesh but how far can that go compared to a finer mesh. I don’t know.

I got the impression that Bing would indeed be the exclusive source, for data that can be worked on, and that any future Bing imagery or photogrammetry improvements would then make it into the simulator's scenery pool. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. There are so many interviews and written articles by now that it's hard to go back and find something specific, I'm talking out of memory now.

AI is indeed used to correct imagery errors and create a 3D world or photogrammetry out of that data, and probably can't do much or anything for mesh. But since Asobo seem to be more dedicated to training the AI than making manual corrections and scenery creation, it would probably not leave them with enough resources to order a better mesh package and work on implementing it either. Since they want Microsoft Flight Simulator to be a showcase of what Bing and Azure can do, I think this is a decision on Microsoft's part. In that case, they wouldn't want the simulator to look better than Bing. It sure would be great if they allowed Asobo to improve the scenery with better data (or even contract a developer like Orbx), and then backport those improvements into Bing.

[tweekz 2,165]

What I realized is, that MSFS2020 doesn't really rely so much on Bing. The core is more about the AI placing the fitting autogen in position. That's why most of the time, the sim looks better than the Bing Imagery in those comparison shots.

Only real downside related to Bing is the bad mesh resolution and the lack of photogrammetry coverage compared to Google.

[Noodle 626]

I mean, you're not wrong to point out that in some places mesh resolution could be better. But the expectation that every single feature on Earth is going to be perfectly represented out-of-the-box seems a little unreasonable.

I am absolutely in favor of minimizing the amount of addons I have to buy in order to gain immersion or functionality. But if we have time to complain that some small karst islands off the shore of Thailand aren't quite right, then we must be talking about one heck of a product.

It's not invalid feedback, but it is kinda like, meh.