Just saw this video and it shows how ie. Photographers can use the sim.

A a photographer myself, who loves taking landscape photos, it surely gave me some ideas.

What other things can you imagine it being used for?

https://youtu.be/5ecueP1sVPU

Obviously if there is a steerable camera, and reasonably accurate buildings, it could be used for news reporting on incidents and such at locations which are cordoned off, or inaccessible for other reasons.

You could use it like street view to have a look at somewhere you've got to go and recon decent car parking places. You can check out where you're going on holiday, or where you've been.

It can familiarise you with areas you will fly in for real so you know where decent forced landing places are.

It could be used for blocking planning of camera positions for location shoots of movies and maybe even be used for those shots in some cases I suppose if the detail is good enough, or at least used as a guide for an art director or second unit director.

It could be used for architectural planning, or checking out somewhere you are considering moving to. Obviously it could be used for all kinds of mission planning in urban and out of town areas, for both military and civilian organisations.

Loads of stuff really. And to be honest I suspect some of this capability will be leveraged by Microsoft for other products.

23 minutes ago, jlund said:

Just saw this video and it shows how ie. Photographers can use the sim.

A a photographer myself, who loves taking landscape photos, it surely gave me some ideas.

What other things can you imagine it being used for?

https://youtu.be/5ecueP1sVPU

As an architectural photographer, I've already been planning to use it to help determine the time of day and season that gives the best sun position for lighting. There is quite often only an hour or two per day for a few months of the year that gives the best light for a specific building at a specific angle.

I do believe the real-world traffic feature in Flight simulator could be used to help with real-world disappearing aircraft, could it not? If Ai planes are located in game as they are in real-life and ai planes fall to the ground like what would happen in a real airplane, like due to an engine failure that could not have been recover, Flight Simulator could be used to help find the location(or at least an estimate) of the downed plane, especially if the emergency happened in real life.
 

This is assuming that AI traffic will follow real-world planes into the ground, but if the air traffic simply lands at the arrival airport that it was supposed to, then it probably won’t work.

Edited July 31, 20205 yr by flightsimfan912

19 minutes ago, flightsimfan912 said:

I do believe the real-world traffic feature in Flight simulator could be used to help with real-world disappearing aircraft, could it not? If Ai planes are located in game as they are in real-life and ai planes fall to the ground like what would happen in a real airplane, like due to an engine failure that could not have been recover, Flight Simulator could be used to help find the location(or at least an estimate) of the downed plane, especially if the emergency happened in real life.

There is probably some truth in this, although I think it would only really be a hail mary pass given that most of the time transponder data and the weather reports in the area can probably do this without resorting to someone at the NTSB firing up their Flight Sim Labs A320.

The really famous mystery in this regard is MH370, and it's doubtful MS flight sim could provide anything which hasn't already been tried with far more sophisticated technology already, but then again there have been cases where people have found stuff that went missing by looking on Google Earth, so you never know.

Edited July 31, 20205 yr by Chock

Exactly.  I plan on using MFS to virtually explore both places I've been and places I want to visit in real life.

It's going to be awesome fun.

Google Maps can be used as well.

Anyway, I'm sure that permission has to be obtained for the sim to be used for commercial use. It is an entertainment game, afterall.

 This thread brings up a topic I have been interested in for years, which is the application of world-wide scenery designed for flight simulation, for non-flight purposes. Until now, this has been limited by the lack of usable scenery based on real-life detailed 3-dimensional data. Even the best landclass / autogen products used in FSX and X-plane are computer-drawn re-creations of the real world, and in most areas do not image real buildings, streets, and roads. But FS2020 changes all that in huge way. Assuming that some, perhaps many, of the ground vehicles and boats that are well-known to FSX users will soon be adapted to FS2020, the program can be used as driving and boating simulators for exploration on roads and waterways anywhere in the world.

  And there is more. The film clip above reveals that FS2020 will not only retain a slew mode, but in addition has a new camera/drone feature, both of which will permit slow exploration at ground level -- a hiking simulator? Imagine starting at base camp on Mt. Everest and climbing to the summit (with or without oxygen; Sherpa guide optional)! Of the ideas I have mentioned, I think the release version of FS2020 will be most useful for boating, which could include everything  from canoeing or power-boating on a lake, to cruising up any river in the world, to piloting the Queen Mary or an aircraft carrier on the ocean. Sailing using real-world wind should also be possible. Driving and walking likely will need improved ground-level imagery in some places, but I have no doubt this will be coming in time. As the narrator of the video predicts, this program is going to stimulate interest and applications that will eventually go far beyond flight per se, which is obliviously mind-blowing in itself. What a moment this is, especially for those of us who remember FS2. Unbelievable.

It's the only safe way to visit Portland and Seattle... 😁

That's exactly what I was hoping for. Integrated Camera with adjustable exposure and aperture settings. Can't wait to have this thing.

There have been a number of examples of aerial photos revealing buried archaeological sites.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2099195-aerial-pictures-reveal-englands-ancient-archaeological-sites/ 

Sometimes it's the oblique evening light that shadows minor height differences. I doubt that the terrain resolution of FS2020 will be granular enough for that, and I don't suppose that the aerial photography takes place at dusk. However, there are subtle vegetation colour differences that can be seen by those who take the trouble to look.