1 hour ago, nickhod said:

I'm curious though, apart from where there's cockpit GPS or a giveaway file name, how on earth are you figuring this out?

Thanks, welcome. I basically just scan the areas in which I expect a particular place to be in Earth View. Since Earth View uses the same imagery as MSFS it is often quite easy to find a location. I normally only search for places I have an idea where they could be. Sometimes it’s pure luck. That Chilean valley  or Sandpoint for instance I found while looking for something else. 

South of Sawakin, Sudan

On 2/21/2020 at 10:39 AM, Shack95 said:

Tokyo, Japan

I just noticed when I zoomed in and for the first time that the procedural infrastructure in this screehshot, does not match the Bing imagery footprints.

If this is really the case, one theory, I think, is that not all the world imagery is scanned (yet) to extract infrastructure footprints and thus the implementation (like in this city) is based on the Lots created by the roads as well as the roads itself and it could be similar to the process I use now in my procedural autogen work using a 3rd party tool (competitor sim).

Interesting!

26 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I just noticed when I zoomed in and for the first time that the procedural infrastructure in this screehshot, does not match the Bing imagery footprints.

That caught my eye as well. It’s the same as in that England screenshot they posted 2 weeks ago. Your explanation makes sense I reckon.

2 hours ago, Shack95 said:

South of Sawakin, Sudan

 

Again, thanks  ! 

Interesting to see that, like many places in remote countries, the Bing imagery of Suakin/Sawakin is more precise than Google Earth. The coastal areas seem  incredibly beautiful.

Edited February 26, 20206 yr by domkle

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

That caught my eye as well. It’s the same as in that England screenshot they posted 2 weeks ago. Your explanation makes sense I reckon.

Very interesting to see a variety of procedural techniques being used to render the world depending on the data availability and type. This is to ensure that there are no empty urban zones.

As for the Tokyo screenshot, I also notice that the density of the infrastructure does not seem to be pushed toward the max values either in the procedural rule or the settings.

So I wonder for such a technique of procedural generation, if in MSFS the density of the infrastructure (i.e: number of infrastructure on one side and another of a road segment or inside a Lot) is static or depends on the user settings.

It is also possible that, by the time the beta is around, who knows, maybe most of the world will have footprint data from the Azure AI scan and this technique is mostly replaced with the one based on footprint extrusions.

Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Claviateur

Also, I see that the OSM footprint data for Tokyo being pretty comprehensive:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1543125#map=15/35.6995/139.7619

This shows that MS perhaps might be relying only on its inhouse data only.

Yet if I look closer at some spots in town, I see the infrastructure somehow matching the footprint type underneath (i.e: large warehouse or facility)

So it could be a mix... Or, another possibility, the Tokyo screenshot is from an Offline flight mode where the infrastructure is generated with this method for this specific mode... Just a theory of course.

16 minutes ago, domkle said:

Again, thanks  ! 

Interesting to see that, like many places in remote countries, the Bing imagery of Suakin/Sawakin is more precise than Google Earth. The coastal areas seem  incredibly beautiful.

My pleasure. I agree. While looking for these locations it occurred to me that Bing has excellent imagery for vast parts of Africa.

1 minute ago, Shack95 said:

My pleasure. I agree. While looking for these locations it occurred to me that Bing has excellent imagery for vast parts of Africa.

I saw the same in Asia

Excellent imagery,  but I'll bet its still a snoozer to fly over.  Oh look,  more sand. Hehe

Kinda like driving, Nebraska  .... look kids, more corn

Namib Naukluft Park, Namibia

Another example of the superiority of Bing imagery over GE. There should be some interesting flying in this sim.

And another example of the beauty of Namibia. I've added it to my bucket list.

Nef River, Chile (followup)

Grey Lake (Torres del Paine National Park), Chile

Edited February 27, 20206 yr by Shack95