Do we have a definitive list of the 3D cities?

[jlund 380]

Thanks, finally found it, but Oh man, there's a looooootttt of cities missing, Ie in Great Britain there's only 1, yes one city (Southhampton), in Denmark only Copenhagen and not a single city in The Netherlands. On the other hand, the trees just look awful, so I'm beginning to think that sceneries and cities made with the Azure ai engine, will look way better than the photogrammetry cities.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

1 hour ago, jlund said:

   I'm beginning to think that sceneries and cities made with the Azure ai engine, will look way better than the photogrammetry cities.

At that stage, I don't think, I keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best

[aleex 551]

1 hour ago, jlund said:

Thanks, finally found it, but Oh man, there's a looooootttt of cities missing, Ie in Great Britain there's only 1, yes one city (Southhampton), in Denmark only Copenhagen and not a single city in The Netherlands. On the other hand, the trees just look awful, so I'm beginning to think that sceneries and cities made with the Azure ai engine, will look way better than the photogrammetry cities.

Well. About the trees, I thought the same sometimes about default ones. Some of the photogrammetry ones lokes more leafy, some of autogen looks better, but other times photogrammetry ones looks worse and autogen ones didn't even match. 

Everything have its pros and cons.

But Photogrammetry cities looks like the real ciy, while with autogen ones I always have a sensation of "empty" space. I can't exactly explain it.

Edited November 18, 2019 by aleex

[seamaster55 75]

Google Earth has thousands of 3D Photogrammetry cities, but of course google is a separate company to Microsoft, and so maybe at some stage in the future Microsoft may want to think about buying in this other data? 🙄

[SterlingCrimson92 8]

Apologies in advance, but what is the difference between photogrammetry and AI-generated models? Don't both approaches require some form of satellite imaging to predict and model what buildings look like in the Flight Sim?

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

1 hour ago, SterlingCrimson92 said:

Apologies in advance, but what is the difference between photogrammetry and AI-generated models? Don't both approaches require some form of satellite imaging to predict and model what buildings look like in the Flight Sim?

Photogrammetry doesn't predict much. It's like a 3d scan done from above. What you see is what is actually there. With the right textures too and all that.
The AI generated models instead follows a thinking process such as "ok we don't have photogrammetry data in this area but we have satellite data. Roofs here are mostly red, so the generated models should have red roofs too" etc etc

[Shack95 2,658]

I've completed the 3d cities list. Now we have 345 cities. Since it's slightly too big to post here as text I've uploaded it as a picture.

page 1:

page 2:

[DreamSkywards 42]

I thought with Asobo being a French studio more importance would be give to Europe and elsewhere. Instead it's full of the usual US cities. I personally mostly fly in Switzerland and Europe in general, sometimes as far east as Turkey.

I really don't need some lost place in the middle of Alabama.

[Shack95 2,658]

2 hours ago, DreamSkywards said:

I thought with Asobo being a French studio more importance would be give to Europe and elsewhere. Instead it's full of the usual US cities.

It aren't the MSFS devs who decide which areas get high detailed photogrammetry and which don't. It depends on the available data from Bing Maps.

 

[DreamSkywards 42]

10 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

It aren't the MSFS devs who decide which areas get high detailed photogrammetry and which don't. It depends on the available data from Bing Maps.

 

True. I admit that detail escaped me for a moment.

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

Also a bit disappointing is the lack of Moscow and Saint Petersburg i think.

But yeah, it shows yet again how Bing Maps is still more of an american project than a global one like Google Maps is at this point.

[DreamSkywards 42]

21 minutes ago, france89 said:

Also a bit disappointing is the lack of Moscow and Saint Petersburg i think.

But yeah, it shows yet again how Bing Maps is still more of an american project than a global one like Google Maps is at this point.

To be fair Google Maps doesn't have them either, but it's true that Google still has a much better global coverage than Bing.

Edited November 20, 2019 by DreamSkywards

[Shack95 2,658]

I agree that the limited number of photogrammetry cities outside the US is a tiny bit of a downer, not least because we know the deta are there, only on the wrong servers. However, I think we should not forget that non-photogrammetry scenery looks great as well. In rural areas in particular it might even look better (procedural grass, no weird trees, high quality autogen etc.). Also, they said that Bing are constantly updating their data and adding new 3d areas.

[RALF9636 1,920]

That's a strange selection partly. Paris and London are missing but we have Rouen and Portsmouth?

Does anybody have an insight how Bing selects the (order of the) cities to be covered with photogrammetry?

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

1 hour ago, DreamSkywards said:

To be fair Google Maps doesn't have them either, but it's true that Google still has a much better global coverage than Bing.

Yes absolutely, i meant more about the overall coverage. In italy Bing covers 10 cities at best, Google Maps probably over 50 or so.

27 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

I agree that the limited number of photogrammetry cities outside the US is a tiny bit of a downer, not least because we know the deta are there, only on the wrong servers. However, I think we should not forget that non-photogrammetry scenery looks great as well. In rural areas in particular it might even look better (procedural grass, no weird trees, high quality autogen etc.). Also, they said that Bing are constantly updating their data and adding new 3d areas.

That is true, but in the end we'll have to see how generic and non generic those non photogrammetry places will be.