Bing Maps and FS2020

[GeoSkyman 59]

Anyone knows if the Bing Maps should have any update because as I noticed, it’s more than 7 years since been updated?

Google Maps are already updated at list less than a year old.

[Shack95 2,658]

They said they were constantly updating, however, there‘s no public roadmap nor do they seem to be particularly active, at least as far as photogrammetry‘s concerned.

[GeoSkyman 59]

Very big difference between Google and Bing maps. I noticed in updated google maps looks so real...

[stans 702]

Google maps displays a higher resolution image, but as far as I know, Bing and Google use the same satellite data, it is just a difference in how often they update their respective sites and what resolution they use.  As for street views, that would be a different story and I doubt those are updated very often.

[Claviateur 789]

Personally, I take Bing aerial imagery as it is now, over any texture based terrain when we have it offered to us out of the box in a formal way. 

 

[Casualcas 830]

And Asobo would say, "not my job" 

[Amon1973 1,421]

Here's an article I've stumbled across on Reddit, I've certainly not seen the article before.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/30/20885197/microsoft-flight-simulator-bing-maps-hands-on-demo

[azulkb 302]

what we have to say is that there are places in the world completely forgotten or not feasible by addon producers, for which bing has good data.

I have an example in mind, I googled, no addon producer in any simulator has anything to offer. And where Google and Bing are pretty good.

An addon producer could do something on this place but you'd have to think about it. Or do it yourself, outside of my skills or the skills of the general public...

so in a traditional simulator most of the time you just have to hope and wait... that one day an addon producer will come up with the idea to develop this location that you like and that you've already visited in real life.

And since this location bing is pretty well endowed, well in the game it will certainly be beautiful.

this place I'm thinking of is Zhangye Danxia. So if a alpha tester passes in this area I hope it will have the chance on a next update to be published to verify my speculation.

Edited February 14, 2020 by azulkb

[Shack95 2,658]

That tester could also make a slight detour to the southwestern part of Georgia and check out the scenery there. In Bing Maps it‘s all black there when zooming in.

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, azulkb said:

what we have to say is that there are places in the world completely forgotten or not feasible by addon producers, for which bing has good data.

I have an example in mind, I googled, no addon producer in any simulator has anything to offer. And where Google and Bing are pretty good.

An addon producer could do something on this place but you'd have to think about it. Or do it yourself, outside of my skills or the skills of the general public...

so in a traditional simulator most of the time you just have to hope and wait... that one day an addon producer will come up with the idea to develop this location that you like and that you've already visited in real life.

And since this location bing is pretty well endowed, well in the game it will certainly be beautiful.

this place I'm thinking of is Zhangye Danxia. So if a alpha tester passes in this area I hope it will have the chance on a next update to be published to verify my speculation.

Indeed... This is why the small subtle difference with MSFS is the use of the word "improve" instead of "create".

Out of the box we will have a comprehensive and pretty immersive VFR experience that can certainly leave room for improvements.

In the actual simulators (on the market) sometimes we need to create from the ground up every component to make an area come to life as it is an empty space in the default scenery...

[GlideBy 324]

7 hours ago, georgiosgiannoukos said:

Anyone knows if the Bing Maps should have any update because as I noticed, it’s more than 7 years since been updated?

Bing maps was updated in July 2019   https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2019-07/we-ve-released-new-birds-eye-imagery

So it is getting updates that MSFS can pick up and use.

Edit, As aleex points out, I just picked a sample update.  So there are other updates they do.

Edited February 14, 2020 by GlideBy

[aleex 551]

1 minute ago, GlideBy said:

Bing maps was updated in July 2019   https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2019-07/we-ve-released-new-birds-eye-imagery

So it is getting updates that MSFS can pick up and use.

Even in November 2019 there was a bird eye update 

Edited February 14, 2020 by aleex

[noob123 57]

This makes me wonder something. When the sim is released, it will be connecting to Bing servers to receive photogrammetry and satellite data to render onto the world. I wonder if it would be possible to point the address the sim connects to a locally hosted server that receives the request from the sim and uses the Google maps API to get photogrammetry data that Bing may not have, using the adapter pattern, and returnes the response in a format the sim can understand. It obviously won't be a Microsoft tool, but just something that a 3rd party mod could potentially do

[jlund 380]

"Even in November 2019 there was a bird eye update"

Still, there's birds eye views that haven't been updated in 11, yes eleven, years, so what would be optimal (but won't ever happen) was if the worked out a deal with Google to also use their data, which in most places are more updated. And not only newer, but also many more places than Bing has. 

[azulkb 302]

2 hours ago, noob123 said:

This makes me wonder something. When the sim is released, it will be connecting to Bing servers to receive photogrammetry and satellite data to render onto the world. I wonder if it would be possible to point the address the sim connects to a locally hosted server that receives the request from the sim and uses the Google maps API to get photogrammetry data that Bing may not have, using the adapter pattern, and returnes the response in a format the sim can understand. It obviously won't be a Microsoft tool, but just something that a 3rd party mod could potentially do

In this way you lost azure AI with color correction, homogeneous landscape and building based on footprint