I really think this is not far away from being the ultimate virtual tourism solution.  It could open up the audience for this by orders of magnitude. I could see some people coming in and never using this to fly at all.  Simply using the drone camera mode to check out their favourite locations and monuments from nearly any perspective.  It could even play a role in classrooms.  Amazing!

Just now, Virtual-Chris said:

I really think this is not far away from being the ultimate virtual tourism solution.  It could open up the audience for this by orders of magnitude. I could see some people coming in and never using this to fly at all.  Simply using the drone camera mode to check out their favourite locations and monuments from nearly any perspective.  It could even play a role in classrooms.  Amazing!

I also think that's one of the reasons why this even exists. In one of the earliest interviews, they talked about increasing the 'value' of Bing to both customers and consumers. Like Google made a lot of 3D applications, including VR built on Google Maps, Microsoft hasn't done much of that. 

Imagine building on this and creating this virtual world with Bing, you can walk around, fly around, do 'virtual tourism'. Even outside of just being a flight simulator, it has a lot of potential to show off and 'sell' Bing as an experience. 

11 minutes ago, Sethos said:

I also think that's one of the reasons why this even exists. In one of the earliest interviews, they talked about increasing the 'value' of Bing to both customers and consumers. Like Google made a lot of 3D applications, including VR built on Google Maps, Microsoft hasn't done much of that. 

Imagine building on this and creating this virtual world with Bing, you can walk around, fly around, do 'virtual tourism'. Even outside of just being a flight simulator, it has a lot of potential to show off and 'sell' Bing as an experience. 

Absolutely.  How many of us have used Google Street View to try and get an impression of a location or whether it's worth a visit or even to find a parking lot?  This has the potential to make street view ultimately look like amateur hour and provide a whole host of new uses for that data.  This is may be the best thing to ever happen to Bing.  I wonder if Google is paying attention?

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

19 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I really think this is not far away from being the ultimate virtual tourism solution.

In places that are handcrafted, Yes, but in places / cities with photogrammetry, it won't be possible to get a good experience. From the videos where people fly low between photogrammetry buildings, it looks anything but amazing. The buildings looks like they're "melting" and a lot of trees, cranes, monuments etc. are still just blocks. So my guess is it will be several years before we can explore Las Vegas by night and go into the casinos 🙂 

8 minutes ago, jlund said:

In places that are handcrafted, Yes, but in places / cities with photogrammetry, it won't be possible to get a good experience. From the videos where people fly low between photogrammetry buildings, it looks anything but amazing. The buildings looks like they're "melting" and a lot of trees, cranes, monuments etc. are still just blocks. So my guess is it will be several years before we can explore Las Vegas by night and go into the casinos 🙂 

I really don’t know where Bing tech and data is at and how much they are leveraging what they already have. It’s possible this is just scratching the surface... enough to make a great flight sim. I honestly had no idea the data they had could even do this. So I’m not going to assume anything about what is and isn’t possible in the short term. Of course, if what we’re discussing requires a whole new type of data collection, then yeah, you’re right, quality locations built by AI may be years off. But imagine that in addition to hand crafted airports, they started also producing hand crafted tourist attractions. It wouldn’t take long before they had more locations to explore than most people could reasonably visit in their life time. 

They have hand crafted some tourist attractions like the Pyramids of Giza, The Eiffeltower, The Taj Mahal etc. but imagine I would like to see the little cafe on the beach I visited in Florida, that will be a long time before that happens. But it certainly have potential and it might be possible some time in the future. Photogrammetry is great, but not when you see it up close.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by jlund

10 minutes ago, jlund said:

They have hand crafted some tourist attractions like the Pyramids of Giza, The Eiffeltower, The Taj Mahal etc. but imagine I would like to see the little cafe on the beach I visited in Florida, that will be a long time before that happens. But it certainly have potential and it might be possible some time in the future. Photogrammetry is great, but not when you see it up close.

I agree, but imagine if they can do something with all the street side data they have... with some AI applied to that, we may be walking along photorealistic streets sooner than later... and it looks like they capture lidar for 3d imaging already...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/streetside

 

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

2 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Absolutely.  How many of us have used Google Street View to try and get an impression of a location or whether it's worth a visit or even to find a parking lot?  This has the potential to make street view ultimately look like amateur hour and provide a whole host of new uses for that data.  This is may be the best thing to ever happen to Bing.  I wonder if Google is paying attention?

All true, if Bing data is updated fast enough instead of being 8 years old as it is in my home town and in much of London for instance.

Google seems far ahead on this as far as I can see, but I obviously haven't checked everywhere in  the world!

6 hours ago, raptor1 said:

What game controllers work in this Simulator with a windows 10 PC?

Dont know and dont care, why would i have to use an xbox controller in a pc game, sounds stupid if you ask me.

Edited August 13, 20205 yr by OHN767

48 minutes ago, OHN767 said:

Dont know and dont care, why would i have to use an xbox controller in a pc game, sounds stupid if you ask me.

They are the best way to control the drone camera.

Hook

2 hours ago, OHN767 said:

Dont know and dont care, why would i have to use an xbox controller in a pc game, sounds stupid if you ask me.

Then you really didn't need to answer the question.

A welcome feature. I already use this type of camera in X-Plane 11, and more: in replay mode!

This technology has been around for years - maybe you didn't notice it

25 years ago I was making walk around videos for Real Estate people doing tours of a house

and similar for holiday resorts - using 360degree technology then - all on a computer with 1995 technology

I think Wolfenstein came out about then and other games using this technology.

Edited August 14, 20205 yr by jaytee73

Sorry if this was mentioned previous in the thread. But at the very beginning of the video does it look like the ground is wet? Like a storm just came through? I only really notice it in the parking lot though. 

On 8/13/2020 at 3:27 PM, Bottle said:

I thought the same. Looks like it's a shrub or bush (depending on your terminology). They must have used photo references for the hand crafting, so I wouldn't have expected a tree. Nor is it that close to the runway (it's clearly behind the fence).

 

22 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

It's just a practical joke Asobo are playing on us. Tree trolling is best trolling. 😄

Again, I did not intend to engage in the unnerving tree debate. 😅 I wasn’t talking about the tree itself at all (it’s placement, whatever). I’m talking about the obvious visual artifacts it’s showing.

Edited August 14, 20205 yr by badderjet