In-game VS Satellite

[Shack95 2,658]

37 minutes ago, Xtremekh said:

Hi @Shack95, the ORDCHI2 image is here, in case you may want to get a bing satellite view of it: (that's ORD to the right).

Nice! Thanks! Now the file name makes sense. That didn‘t occur to me. 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Shack95

[Darcanlos 89]

Is it possible that the AI might also be applying some editing itself over the photogrammetry cities? Looking at the Alicante shot, I have the feeling that the resolution in the in-game shot is better and more defined than in Bing Maps. Also the cars in the commercial center seem better defined in the game. It might be my eyes deceveing me, or the lightning that might be causing that effect, but it all seems less jagged and better in the game shots...

[Xtremekh 32]

48 minutes ago, Darcanlos said:

Is it possible that the AI might also be applying some editing itself over the photogrammetry cities? Looking at the Alicante shot, I have the feeling that the resolution in the in-game shot is better and more defined than in Bing Maps. Also the cars in the commercial center seem better defined in the game. It might be my eyes deceveing me, or the lightning that might be causing that effect, but it all seems less jagged and better in the game shots...

I definitely get the impression that there is definitely a difference between what Asobo is processing and sending to the sim versus what we see on Bing. Bing is likely optimized to be easier to process for a variety of computers and stream in a lower resolution/quickly. On the other hand, a lot of the processing for MFS can be done using the AI, processed closer to the true shape, and then streamed separately from the Bing data. Not sure if that makes full sense, but I definitely think the MFS photogrammetry is more true to shape and much less bloby. 

[Dominique_K 10,150]

14 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Mont Cenis, France

 

Just now, siggy said:

In the above mentioned screenshot, the snow-capped ridge on the right hand side that goes down to the "HUD meters" on the bottom right corner, its snow cover ends all of a sudden on its left hand side. It looks as if some generic texture is overlaid there. Anyway, probably not much to worry about 🙂 as things will improve in the future. 

@siggy I transport your quote here as Shack (you are the one, Shack, thanks again) has found the place and posted a comparison.  

This is indeed an interesting pic which shows the limitations of the sat imagery. Here is the same in GE, a better image that I slightly slanted to show the relief :

 All the three seem to be a composite of several sat images.

The Bing one has still clouds on the top right toward the lake.

The  FS20 picture has been corrected for the clouds and indeed not too nicely. Machine work, a human would have done better . Interestingly enough, the peak shadows have been partially erased, evidence that it is possible.

The Mont Cenis reservoir dam has not been recognized by the AI. 

"Things will improve in the future ?". Yes and no. The "it is still an alpha" mantra shouldn't hide  that the release will have hundreds of flaws like that. And I don't mind because it will still be a huge leap forward and the community will help Asobo to correct them. You were aggravated by the rivet counters ?  The geography  maniacs are a comin' 😋 ! 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Dominique_K

[siggy 154]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

The  FS20 picture has been corrected for the clouds and indeed not too nicely. Machine work, a human would have done better . Interestingly enough, the peak shadows have been partially erased, evidence that it is possible.

Thank you Dominique for your investigation! It is good that they are not shy showing us non-perfect screenshots, so we know that we will not, at least not straight away, maybe never really, have a sim where everything looks close to being perfect. Wonder whether the shadows are also removed by the AI and then the scenery render engine adds them back dynamically according to lighting conditions, or whether they are baked into the landscape? As long as we can also choose a winter landscape, it will be fine 🙂 .

[Claviateur 789]

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

"Things will improve in the future ?". Yes and no. The "it is still an alpha" mantra shouldn't hide  that the release will have hundreds of flaws like that. And I don't mind because it will still be a huge leap forward and the community will help Asobo to correct them. You were aggravated by the rivet counters ?  The geography  maniacs are a comin' 😋 ! 

 

I remember when OrbX released their FTX Global scenery for FSX, users reported like a million flaw in the places they visit on this planet, all sort of glitches here and there from the data etc.I assume the same thing will happen with MSFS.

But I hope user friendly tools will be available and users will learn the DIY scenery improvement for their area of interest.

Otherwise poor Asobo 😕

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Claviateur

[Dominique_K 10,150]

Just now, siggy said:

Thank you Dominique for your investigation! It is good that they are not shy showing us non-perfect screenshots, so we know that we will not, at least not straight away, maybe never really, have a sim where everything looks close to being perfect. Wonder whether the shadows are also removed by the AI and then the scenery render engine adds them back dynamically according to lighting conditions, or whether they are baked into the landscape? As long as we can also choose a winter landscape, it will be fine 🙂 .

I think that the shadows half-erasure is a side effect of the cloud cleaning. They were not targeted as such. What I fear is that the baked-in shadows will mostly be here and that light rendering engine will add a second one like if the Earth had two suns.

Just now, Claviateur said:

 

Otherwise poor Asobo 😕

 

Oh! in any case, poor Asobo. The release will be a gigantic circus as the expectations of the many unreasonable simmers (aren't we all ? 😉) cannot be met as good as the sim could be. 

[Claviateur 789]

33 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

What I fear is that the baked-in shadows will mostly be here and that light rendering engine will add a second one like if the Earth had two suns.

This is a reality we must accept as a compromise in aerial imagery / Orthophoto scenery. Imagery shadows, mix of color hues and seasons as patches of imagery in the same region as well as the imagery static snow on the mountains all year long will be there...

But... I used to think this would bother me a lot before I started generating Orthophoto scenery for the other simulator. Honestly, when I started flying over that generated Ortho scenery, all these were not a show stopper at all... Once in the simulator's engine, rendered with vegetation and all the 3D infrastructure and the details, all these bothering stuff will not be visible or noticeable... 

At least this is what I experienced myself... To me Ortho scenery with all these baked elements is still way more realistic than any generic texture based scenery in the actual simulators... If it has the 3D elements over it.

33 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Oh! in any case, poor Asobo. The release will be a gigantic circus as the expectations of the many unreasonable simmers (aren't we all ? 😉) cannot be met as good as the sim could be. 

Indeed 🙂

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Claviateur

[siggy 154]

53 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

What I fear is that the baked-in shadows will mostly be here and that light rendering engine will add a second one like if the Earth had two suns.

You are right, I remember now, we have seen this, e.g here: (this is from the May 7th update)

[Dominique_K 10,150]

Just now, Claviateur said:

This is a reality we must accept as a compromise in aerial imagery / Orthophoto scenery. 

 

 

Nope 😁, as the song goes "No retreat, Baby, no surrender !" 

Seriously, we'll maybe have to deal with that in the early years but the extensive of AI should come to a point where shadows will be erased. The AI already knows  what a shadow is as it uses it to determine the height of buildings. To eraset hem from the ground textures should come next. 

[Claviateur 789]

17 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Nope 😁, as the song goes "No retreat, Baby, no surrender !" 

Seriously, we'll maybe have to deal with that in the early years but the extensive of AI should come to a point where shadows will be erased. The AI already knows  what a shadow is as it uses it to determine the height of buildings. To eraset hem from the ground textures should come next. 

I suppose if there is a company that should know or have solutions on how AI could be tomorrow's smart photo retoucher is Adobe 🙂 

[sightseer 895]

Unless the exact height of everything is known, including every square inch of terrain (ASL?), I would think it'd be difficult to remove shadows automatically and for it to be done by hand for the entire world wouldn't be possible.  If heights were known, then you could set artificial lighting to time of day/year that produces shadows that match those to be removed and then do color correction.

This is why I suggested pseudo photoreal that relies on defined regions of textures and then textures that mimic what one would expect to see like a snow covered rocky mountain or a grassy field.  I think in reality most of the Earth changes quite frequently in appearance.  Grass, weeds, vegetation, crops, snow, water...it all makes much of the Earth's appearance change fairly often and so I don't think there is a "right" appearance in many cases. Its the man made stuff that doesnt change as much. Roads and buildings don't move like rivers do and their appearance doesnt change like a field might. But it really appears they are using satellite/aerial imagery 'beefed up' with 'corrections/improvements'(pseudo photoreal if you will).

What I keep wondering is: How many people are going to insist that the satellite/aerial image is what should be in the sim when in fact that image only captured a split second in time/appearance.

Edited June 6, 2020 by sightseer

[Claviateur 789]

On 6/3/2020 at 3:39 AM, Shack95 said:

Larsen Bay AK, USA

Just came across a new freeware scenery Kodiak Alaska released for the other simulator. Among the few airfields, Larsen Bay is featured with an Orthophoto ground layout as well as most probably an overlay scenery generated with OSM data... 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Claviateur

[Shack95 2,658]

On 6/6/2020 at 9:03 AM, Dominique_K said:

It looks as if some generic texture is overlaid there.

I think you're right. One of the leaked videos shows Courchevel in offline mode, i.e. without satellite imagery. I can't post a comparison shot here obviously, but the snow-covered mountains there look very similar. So I guess that the sim uses generic landclass textures where the imagery is too messy.

We can see a similar result in the screenshot below (right half background). However, since Bing’s imagery looks good in this case it could as well be a glitch.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Shack95

[arsenal82 120]

On 6/6/2020 at 9:36 PM, Claviateur said:

Just came across a new freeware scenery Kodiak Alaska released for the other simulator. Among the few airfields, Larsen Bay is featured with an Orthophoto ground layout as well as most probably an overlay scenery generated with OSM data... 

this make more sense

as comparing two sim; one with autogen and orthos and the other not; is a waste of time