If your city is not modeled in photogrammetry

[FAZZ3 815]

Do you feel disappointed? I’m kinda bummed out that my city, Dubai, one of the best in the world in terms of skylines and infrastructure, isn’t modeled in photogrammetry. I get that there’s a dedicated team for Bing maps but their lack of recent updates makes me have less hopes in them.
 

From what I see, many prominent cities in major countries aren’t modeled as well. I guess this is where third-party scenery developers could come in, but the cities which do have photogrammetry by default look really incredible. I guess you can’t have it all. 

[Deleted 250]

I think MS will cover more and more here in the next few years. Dubai will come. I will not pay extra money for that.

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

I really wouldn't be too down-hearted because my main closest city is sort of half done in photogrammetry and the other half is NOT.

It just happned to be in one of the Update Screenshots by the Alphas not that long ago and I was looking for the "demarcation line" between the two sources of data - and it wasn't visible - it was seamless.

Don't despair until you've flown it is the takeaway.

[Claviateur 789]

Well yes and no... I noticed in the promotional videos that the Photogrammetry cities LOD is updating and morphing just like it does in Google Earth ( since it"s like a mesh terrain).

So it has its obvious advantages when it comes to realism (depending on resolution) but its (LOD refreshing) downside as well... I just hope the global terrain elevation does not refresh like this!

So not having a photogrammetry city is not a show stopper at all. The evidence is in this screenshot of Downtown Sydney created procedurally and with footprint data. And it looks superb as an out of the box default scenery...

Edited June 6, 2020 by Claviateur

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

Yes. It might well be that the more detail that is available will lead to the dreaded popping that we've had to endure.

An interesting piece of irony - almost a case of less is more; and the less is very, very good anyway.

But we do have this confirmed Caching of often used scenery - so that will be good.

So put the Sliders full right for the download and then go fly Offline?

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Will Fly For Cheese

[shamrockflyer 647]

How does one know if an area is covered or not? Is there a list? 

 

[pmb 5,137]

58 minutes ago, shamrockflyer said:

How does one know if an area is covered or not? Is there a list? 

Yes. You can download a (free) App called Earth View 3D from the MS Store. It's similar to Google Earth but based on Bing. There is a 3D Icon in the menu, 5th menu entry, actually showing all photogrammtry cities in the world. That's what you can expect in MSFS - not more and not less, but potentially preprocessed via Azure AI, of course.

1 hour ago, Claviateur said:

Well yes and no... I noticed in the promotional videos that the Photogrammetry cities LOD is updating and morphing just like it does in Google Earth ( since it"s like a mesh terrain).

Good observation.

Kind regards, Michael

[HiFlyer 9,360]

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1IJYlVvT9fy9VQ9voO6cp-JS3LCBGCetW&ll=-3.81666561775622e-14%2C-114.11636120000003&z=1

Edited June 6, 2020 by HiFlyer

[Chock 17,769]

If your city is not included then you'll be in good company, because most of them are not. I think a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that MSFS2020 is going to be like some kind of indistinguishable VR simulator of the entire real world with everything modeled perfectly, and if they are imagining this will be the case, then they are going to be in for a big disappointment.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Chock

[Wewk584 137]

tbh I am just looking for of a real feel/look in flight over default xp (most of the world is repetitively textured deserts/crop circles  or mountain ranges).  If most of the world is 3d and modeled fairly accurately and i dont have to manually download flat ortho (and remove clouds and patchy tiles myself) then im very happy.. The more close to reality the better of course but as some have mentioned above.. i think the direction is there for more and more accurate satellite imagery which will only improve bing (and google etc) images which will improve their 3d 'earth' apps and by virtue MFS...   

 

And even then MFS interprets what its seeing and presents clean versions of buildings etc.(except for areas that they have modeled by hand)  What we will end up with will NOT literally  be bing earth with a plane and cool clouds.

 

But yeah.. MFS is not the end of orbx / and other 3rd or even 1st party airport addons.. but enough of the world will be covered that I think most people will not require scenery to be immersed in the sim. (but in some places scenery add ons will help)  ...You can enjoy a fairly accurate model of the world to a level to suit vfr flight most places.*

Edited June 6, 2020 by Wewk584

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

It's going to be odd.

We're all going to start at our local airfields, then we'll take off - VFR - and overfly our houses and see how they look - maybe try that Robin for that. Because I haven't flown one but I've always wanted to - looks good - like the wings and I want to fly steam gauges at first - Garmins look a little too cartoon-like and not like they should real world anyway. I've flown the real world ones and the greens are much darker and the synthetic vision graphics just don't look that monochromatic.

So steam gauges it is - and that seems right anyway for an untried aircraft in an untried sim, flying in unknown skies, METAR and then attempting a landing on an unknown surface. Just trying to preserve life here...and not ruin my Flight Log.

If that goes okay then we'll head for our nearest big population city that we know is Photogrammetry to have a look at that - maybe in a twin-donks - like a Seminole - Bert - hope you're standing by with those fixes for the eye-point and the AP?

Then, and only then we'll take a Heavy out (sorry, no discussion - 777 or bust - so I'll probably have to wait for that) out of a big airport - for me that's Gatwick - Runway 8R probably chucking it in to a swift right turn on to a SAM1X departure to the West. (Did someone say there's a A320 NEO available to take for a thrashing?)

It's going to be one hell of a journey and ASOBO alone knows what we'll see.

I can't bl**dy wait.

But I'll see you up there my fellow aviators.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Will Fly For Cheese

[Claviateur 789]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

If your city is not included then you'll be in good company, because most of them are not. I think a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that MSFS2020 is going to be like some kind of indistinguishable VR simulator of the entire real world with everything modeled perfectly, and if they are imagining this will be the case, then they are going to be in for a big disappointment.

If as you said, people will be disappointed from the scenery of MSFS, then it will be the most bizarre thing I will have to witness in the history of flight simulator software...

I understand that many do not know technically speaking how things are done in the sim engine. Probably they think the world will get mostly photogrammetry when the first version is out or the AI is putting everything where it should be and as it looks in real life...

But we must know now that most of the planet will be just like the Sydney screenshot (above) and this is by itself a spectacular thing...  It"s a very obvious thing to say that no simulator among those available today, features a default scenery for the whole planet with aerial imagery, details and immersion...

Probably many will have to keep their actual simulators installed  just to compare for few seconds their area of interest... And I am sure they will then live happy ever after... 🙂

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Claviateur

[Claviateur 789]

53 minutes ago, Wewk584 said:

MFS is not the end of orbx / and other 3rd or even 1st party airport addons.. but enough of the world will be covered that it wont be 'virtually' a must to acquire it.  You can enjoy a fairly accurate model of the world to a level to suit vfr flight almost anywhere.

I think MSFS business model as a PC flight sim will be the end of VFR scenery as theaters or patches... 

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

17 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I think MSFS business model as a PC flight sim will be the end of VFR scenery as theaters or patches... 

I certainly hope so. I really do.

I have no problem paying out for good Airports from the likes of Gary at UK2000 - and indeed, I hope there's an opportunity for him. He's pushed the boundaries of what is possible in the confines of the code of FSX and P3D - I hope he will do the same with this new sim.

As for scenery peddlers - they're dust now and I ain't got a problem with that.

In saying that I'm talking about two big commercial scenery developers - not the wonderful dedicated Artisans that create localised scenery for the love of it who share their wonderful creations for free/ donation.

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Will Fly For Cheese

[Claviateur 789]

2 hours ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

I certainly hope so. I really do.

I have no problem paying out for good Airports from the likes of Gary at UK2000 - and indeed, I hope there's an opportunity for him. He's pushed the boundaries of what is possible in the confines of the code of FSX and P3D - I hope he will do the same with this new sim.

As for scenery peddlers - they're dust now and I ain't got a problem with that.

In saying that I'm talking about two big commercial scenery developers - not the wonderful dedicated Artisans that create localised scenery for the love of it who share their wonderful creations for free/ donation.

 

Sure. But I was not talking about the artisans who create localised scenery but rather about precisely the big commercial scenery developers you mentioned and their great achievements no doubt.

Orbx created wonderful VFR packages and they still do. Yet these are precisely what I call the VFR theaters. And one must pay the price of almost another simulator to have a couple of (realistic) US States where they can fly immersive VFR... But they must not make one step outside of these immersive areas 🙂 ... Or they burst the VFR bubble...

These great major commercial groups will certainly add an added value to the already great out of the box value in MSFS but most importantly, their work won't look anymore like a theater of VFR operations in the middle of a generic continent... It will be a rather well integrated detailed areas that blend seamlessly with a VFR world.

But then I am confident after seeing all these screenshots and videos that many users will still enjoy the default MSFS world without having to spend extra money on extra VFR packages...

I think for MSFS VFR world, users could simply create the landmarks in their area of interest and all the sudden the default scenery will have already one more notch of added realism... 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Claviateur