Since Google technically got almost full countries in photogrammetry while Bing barely got there a descent satellite image, i would say MS best bet to provide MSFS a proper photogrammetry for most parts of the world anytime soon will be to buy them from Google. Unless they leave it to 3rd party to slowly gather 3D landmarks. I must admit people didnt waste a single moment and new content shows up everyday.

As much as i think Blackshark.ai did a very nice job, lots of time it creates ridiculous things that simply makes you laugh.

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by roi1862

1 hour ago, Steve_Ellis said:

 something which was not abundant in P3D and still isn't.

This is because IMO P3D was becoming 'enterprise exclusive' and making money machine for 3rd party developers, that is I think is because P3D is targeting more professional users and training companies. Therefore, this relation made me to appreciate X-Plane as it has good community landscape, you can find good quality free add-ones which something not so often in P3D.

Now came MSFS, from my experience of developing my first scenery from Google Maps into MSFS, pretty sure MSFS will be like X-Plane in terms of community contributions, as you mentioned, it was something common in FS9 and FSX. Good times ahead indeed! 

Asobo has said they will keep working on the scenary.  So embarrassment wont have anything to do with it. Ultimately if people replace a few cities with google data or scenaries based on google data , it's not the end of the world . There are places that even google has bad data for so the benefit of a blackshark is still there. 

For me , the beauty of the sim is the base scenary looks better (closer to reality as a whole) than current sims base scenary . I don't even mind buying a few cities and airports that are important to me. But I'm not trying to download the world . So I'll wait for asobo/ms to keep improving their product.  I'm enjoying myself immensly even as it is now.

I have a suspicion that improving the quality of the base scenery is not Asobo's top priority. All I've seen so far by people using Google replacements are some improved center cities and a whole pile of football stadiums. And often these items stand out because they have not been color matched to the default areas covered by Bing photoimagery. It's not that I don't appreciate the effort that people are putting into these mods. It's just that they really don't impact my personal overall flying experience all that much. Did I enjoy seeing a realistic skyline in Buffalo NY? Of course, but the novelty wore off after one flight.

The MSFS base global scenery is so far superior to what can be achieved in P3d5 and XP11, that improving it isn't even in the top ten of things that need to be fixed. Fix the live weather, autopilot, ATC and AI traffic first. Add  speech recognition, VR and refine the SDK. That's enough work to keep Asobo occupied for months, if not years.

5 hours 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 Google contracted the companies to gather that data, then it's not theirs to sell.

3 hours ago, roi1862 said:

Since Google technically got almost full countries in photogrammetry while Bing barely got there a descent satellite image, i would say MS best bet to provide MSFS a proper photogrammetry for most parts of the world anytime soon will be to buy them from Google. Unless they leave it to 3rd party to slowly gather 3D landmarks. I must admit people didnt waste a single moment and new content shows up everyday.

As much as i think Blackshark.ai did a very nice job, lots of time it creates ridiculous things that simply makes you laugh.

I disagree on the amount of praise Google gets and flack Bing gets on their data. I agree Google has more (maybe vastly more) areas in 3D, but "nearly entire countries" is an exageration. Many continents (Africa/Asia) are barely covered even by decent flat satellite and I've seen many such areas where Bing has better and clearer data than Google.

3D in Google is much more cities, but more cities and suburbs, it's hardly entire countries, at the end of the day even if you put the best of Bing and Google together, you'd still have plenty of areas where "guesswork" with sometimes ridiculous outcomes is inevitable.

5 hours 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.

I'm very curious about this myself.

4 hours ago, omarsmak30 said:

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.

If someone creates a scenery from Google data for their own personal use, they probably won't be bothered by Google, but these sceneries are being created and redistributed on multiple sites, some with no attribution, others mentioning Google as the source and claiming it is okay under Fair Use. Any website distributing scenery created from Google photogrammetry may be on 'thin ice'. Google's TOS clearly lists redistribution (which doesn't just mean payware) as prohibited conduct. There is nothing in Googles TOS that would allow Ortho4XP sceneries to be redistributed either. Even if it was considered 'Fair Use', which I doubt, Google requires attribution be displayed when the content is in view, ie: in the sim itself which is not practical. 

Whether or not Google clamps down on the websites or individuals that are sharing these Google landmarks etc, remains to be seen, but, unless you want to roll your own for your own use, you may want to grab them while you can.

 

 

I am also not a big fan of the lack in 2D image resolution and and lack of photogrammetry in Bing maps.

If X-Plane or P3D ever do the same that MFS, but with Google maps, I instantly switch simulators.

8 hours ago, roi1862 said:

Since Google technically got almost full countries in photogrammetry while Bing barely got there a descent satellite image, i would say MS best bet to provide MSFS a proper photogrammetry for most parts of the world anytime soon will be to buy them from Google. Unless they leave it to 3rd party to slowly gather 3D landmarks. I must admit people didnt waste a single moment and new content shows up everyday.

As much as i think Blackshark.ai did a very nice job, lots of time it creates ridiculous things that simply makes you laugh.

 Exhibit A: default Washington Monumemt.