MS have pulled really a fine product with MSFS 2020, no doubt. But seeing so many users trying avidly to import competitors data into their high-tech scenery solution must feel bad.

Do you see MS reacting proactively and trying to catch up with photogrammetry data with Google saving the face from  "competitor infiltration" or  just sitting idly watching the flightsim product being enhanced no matter what the source is.

How is this going to play out?  Would upgrading their data have anything to do FS (pun: face saving)?

Troll post. 

Google is not competing against MS in regards to flight simulation, so I don't see the problem for MS here.

I think the third parties will  be the most annoyed by freeware google photogrammetry, and I bet they are hoping that Google will take action, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them started denouncing to Google what's going on.

Why buy any landmark scenery from 3pds if one day there is a software like ortho4xp but  photogrammetry4msfs that injects photogrammetry to msfs ?

The costs and logistics of creating a photogrammetry model of a city are huge. You need a light aircraft with a super expensive, custom, camera and lidar rig mounted in it. You then need permission from the city / airspace operator to fly multiple times over the city. After that a farm of computers does its photogrammetry generation work on the terabytes of data captured, then a whole team does manual cleanup.

It's a different ballgame to sending some streetview cars out.

Given 5 or 10 years, no doubt MS will improve their European coverage, but there are no quick fixes so I'm sure we'll see lots of unofficial Google Earth ported stuff for MSFS.

35 minutes ago, nickhod said:

but there are no quick fixes

Unless Google bought exlcusive rights or sent out their own aircraft to create their photogrammetry, it is simply a matter of approaching the companies that already gathered data and buy it for display in Bing Maps.

regarding Browsers...Edge has super passed Chrome on every single feature, you should try it!! (Well..its built on top Chromium, but w/p all the bloat that Chrome has)

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by tangerine

With regards to some of these great additions to MSFS from freeware contributors to date , I feel and I am not sure how other people feel about it but it is really refreshing to see some actual freeware being developed for the new sim, something which was not abundant in P3D and still isn't.

This reminds me of the FS9 days where there were thousands of contributors to the community and I am all for it, albeit adding football stadiums to the default scenery, this should be positively encouraged in my opinion. I am not sure what the ins and outs of Google maps being used, and frankly I am not bothered about it. These contibutions have been really quick and are up on some websites for download, although I do not see much freeware in the library here for some reason.

The freeware available should be encouraged and promoted how it used to be and I hope payware companies will co-exsist with this enthusiasm.

27 minutes ago, Farlis said:

Unless Google bought exlcusive rights or sent out their own aircraft to create their photogrammetry, it is simply a matter of approaching the companies that already gathered data and buy it for display in Bing Maps.

If former is true than catch up will be slow paced. Otherwise  I can see MS expanding 3D coverage more rapidly, FS being a catalyst to a process due to its exposure. 

Xbox vs Playstation

Apples vs Samsung

Nvidia vs AMD

Google vs Bing

XPlane vs MSFS

It's always something vs something but we seem to fight more battles and do more forecasting for our favourites than the companies themselves do. Give it a rest.

2 minutes ago, Steve_Ellis said:

With regards to some of these great additions to MSFS from freeware contributors to date , I feel and I am not sure how other people feel about it but it is really refreshing to see some actual freeware being developed for the new sim, something which was not abundant in P3D and still isn't.

This reminds me of the FS9 days where there were thousands of contributors to the community and I am all for it, albeit adding football stadiums to the default scenery, this should be positively encouraged in my opinion. I am not sure what the ins and outs of Google maps being used, and frankly I am not bothered about it. These contibutions have been really quick and are up on some websites for download, although I do not see much freeware in the library here for some reason.

The freeware available should be encouraged and promoted how it used to be and I hope payware companies will co-exsist with this enthusiasm.

Maybe a tool to automate the process is not far away. This could also speed up the response from  parties if they have any intent to react to large scale imports. Maybe Google would react sooner as the imported  3D  data  becomes blended with the rest of the product  without proper acknowledgement.  

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

Troll post. 

Sorry. Not my intention. Just interested what people think about this matter (not maliciously). I would prefer MS to start catching up instead of fiddling with conversion tools (probably time and space overwhelming when used on a large scale) but  I admit it is naive to attribute companies any kind of emotional response.

They'll simply have their own agendas and FS i(although we may be emotionally attached to it) is a too small a part of the big picture to prompt any immediate response. Yeah, I know, this contradicts with my wishful thinking expressed before. 

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by versus

8 minutes ago, versus said:

Sorry. Not my intention. Just interested what people think about this matter (not maliciously). I would prefer MS to start catching up instead of fiddling with conversion tools (probably time and space overwhelming when used on a large scale) but  I admit it is naive to attribute companies any kind of emotional response.

They'll simply have their own agendas and FS i(although we may be emotionally attached to it) is a too small a part of the big picture to prompt any immediate response. Yeah, I know, this contradicts with my wishful thinking expressed before. 

dont worry, nothing wrong with this post.

Not sure how people modding the game and adding stuff into it can be seen as a bad thing. Games that don't have an active community are dead games that don't sell well.

People adding Google Earth stuff into the sim is hardly a failure either, despite its occasional kinks here and there, FS2020 looks more gorgeous than any sim that came before it. Google Earth also isn't competing on the flightsim market, and on the satellite data market, well, Google Earth is pretty much the defacto ruler for everyone but I very often encounter areas that Bing has better imagery than Google, one may be superior than the other over specific areas (like streetview) but I wouldn't say one is clearly the underdog.

2 hours ago, cepact said:

Google is not competing against MS in regards to flight simulation, so I don't see the problem for MS here.

I think the third parties will  be the most annoyed by freeware google photogrammetry, and I bet they are hoping that Google will take action, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them started denouncing to Google what's going on.

Why buy any landmark scenery from 3pds if one day there is a software like ortho4xp but  photogrammetry4msfs that injects photogrammetry to msfs ?

Honestly, I don't think Google cares, we have been doing ortho4xp for many years, nor Bing or Google complained about it as long is for personal use and not commercialised and I think the same will go for photogrammetry cities. 

In regards to freeware photogrammetry data, honestly, the process is easy and the new Scenery editor in MSFS is initiative and makes the whole developing very easy and in real-time comparing how to used to be in FSX, which explains the explosion of freeware for MSFS and therefore, this will push 3rd party developers to push themselves to provide higher quality add-ones in response to freeware, similar to X-Plane landscape.  

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by omarsmak30