In some places MSFS not an accurate representation

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

26 minutes ago, Huascar said:

I see. Well, maybe someday we’ll have the entire world 

In many areas goggle maps gives better results than Bing but importing google maps data is an arcane and time consuming process and from a legal standpoint you may possibly only be allowed to do it for personal use and not allowed to share your work.   There have of course been lots of "internet lawyer" arguments on other forums about the legalities of using google map data in MSFS but the arguments are from non lawyers based on "common sense" and stuff they have googled on the net.  Neither common-sense nor stuff you googled have any relevance at all if it ever goes to court. Anyone that thinks the law and common-sense have anything in common watches too much television.

Basically, unless someone like XPlane eventually does a google maps deal and tries to compete,  you are stuck with whatever data Bing maps can provide and in areas outside the US that often amounts to "not much at all" .

Was the original publicity from Microsoft claiming you could pretty much go anywhere in the world and find your house misleading? Probably. 

Is that misleading claim a legal issue for them ? Probably not, as it would probably come under the general legal heading of "puffery" where basically advertisers are allowed to exaggerate if an average person would not be expected to take the claim as 100% serious.

 

[Toneal2 6]

I flew from Caernarfon eastward along the Menai Straits (North Wales, UK) the other evening. I know the area well. There are two bridges connecting the Isle of Anglesey with the mainland. One is quite narrow - you can just get a double decker buses passing each other; the other is much wider and has dual carriageways. Both bridges are on Bing satellite but neither could be seen on MSFS 2020. (Both bridges were built in the 1800s.)

Further along, there is a small rocky island, Puffin Island. It is a place for seabirds. AI has it covered with fields.

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

4 minutes ago, Toneal2 said:

I flew from Caernarfon eastward along the Menai Straits (North Wales, UK) the other evening. I know the area well. There are two bridges connecting the Isle of Anglesey with the mainland. One is quite narrow - you can just get a double decker buses passing each other; the other is much wider and has dual carriageways. Both bridges are on Bing satellite but neither could be seen on MSFS 2020. (Both bridges were built in the 1800s.)

 

 

Bridges often suffer from terrain mesh height issues.  Basically the game often decides they are under water.

In some cases I have come across, if you fly low enough you can even see the bridge rendered a few meters below the waves.

[Blackthorn 12]

1 hour ago, Toneal2 said:

I flew from Caernarfon eastward along the Menai Straits (North Wales, UK) the other evening.

 

I made a similar flight the other evening. Another thing I noticed is that the same generic houses are used for both Wales and England when, in fact, there ought to be more stone, whitewash etc in Wales. I haven’t checked out Scotland yet - but the same would apply re the houses. The generic houses are great but the colour palette is quite important from the point of view of realism. Obviously they do change the houses from region to region, but I guess England and Wales is treated as one region. It would be quite interesting to see where the boundaries are.

I’m a great fan of rewilding, so I wish there were as many trees in UK as appear in the sim. My impression is that hedgerows are being interpreted as lines of trees.

I’ve read a lot on the forum about missing “water masks”. Is that what’s causing water effects to appear on sea cliffs etc, making them look like shimmering bluish-white cliffs from a distance? This glitch mostly seems to disappear when you get closer. I’m looking forward to a better UK terrain mesh, but this other problem will need to be solved as well - unless the more accurate height data is a cure in itself.

Another minor criticism I have is the lack of beaches. After flying along the coast of N Wales I turned left towards the Merseyside/Lancashire coast. Southport is famously a seaside resort where the sea is rarely glimpsed (!) so I was quite surprised to see the water pretty much lapping up against the seafront. (What’s more, Southport beach is actually listed as a landing strip in some sims!) Morecambe Bay was chock full of water too. Of course you could argue that the place is being represented at high tide, which is fair enough where the tide does come all the way in to the land.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Ian C
Wanted to add a paragraph

[Toneal2 6]

In New Zealand it's different. The beach at Doubtless Bay looked in the sim as good as it was last time as I walked along its length. In case you where this, fly north from Kerikeri NZKR.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Toneal2
Inserted ICAO code.

[cobalt 798]

On 12/10/2020 at 8:31 AM, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Only areas with 3D Bing photogrammetry are realistic and accurate. 
 

Sorry, but this is not accurate. Photogrammetry affects only the 3D representation of buildings in areas where it is used. It does not affect the realism of scenery in general, which is controlled by the Bing satellite imagery. These are two different things, which in MSFS appear as different settings under Data. If you turn off photogrammetry but leave the Bing satellite coverage on, you will still have accurate placement of buildings worldwide; you just won't see the 3D modeling of certain buildings (a minor difference, to me). 

[Blackthorn 12]

4 hours ago, Toneal2 said:

In New Zealand it's different. The beach at Doubtless Bay looked in the sim as good as it was last time as I walked along its length. In case you where this, fly north from Kerikeri NZKR.

I drove past there a few years ago, during a trip to NZ. Never flown over it sadly.

[snglecoil 1,828]

I too am disgusted. My house in the sim, though accurately placed, shaped, and sized is entirely the wrong color and the roof shows a shingle type more at home in Miami than North Carolina. And can we talk about the grass?!? If I let my grass grow as tall as it is in the sim, I’d be getting nasty-grams from the home owner’s association!  

....uninstalling 

[AviatorMan 253]

The cities in the list as having photogrammetric representation that I have flown over (Several cities in the U.S. plus Dresden, Milan, and Venice) seem excellent representations to me. Venice is a stunner. I haven't visited all of these cities to verify, but flying over the greater Fort Worth Texas region (where I lived for several years) is very close to reality. (Meacham Field airport unfortunately is not accurate.). But interestingly I have found some cities that are not on the list that seem accurate to me. La Rochelle, France for example, a city which I have visited and am familiar with. The harbour has two distinctive gateway stone towers that appear accurate. It looks photogrammetric to me. So I am wondering if the list  of photogrammetric represented cities  is complete? 
 

[cobalt 798]

17 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Was the original publicity from Microsoft claiming you could pretty much go anywhere in the world and find your house misleading? Probably. 

 

 

Well, I live in a small city on a street one block long, that is unknown even to many in the city outside my neighborhood. Yet my house, and all the others in the neighborhood, are there, in their proper locations and footprints. the same is true of three former homes I have lived in in other cities, as well as my daughter's house and my son's house. Moreover, in my exploration of the world in MSFS, I find that even mountain huts in the middle of nowhere, barns on isolated farms, etc. are all there, right where they should be according to Open Street Map. As far as I'm concerned the publicity statement, especially with the qualifier "pretty much", is accurate. For heaven's sake, what is there to complain about?

[marsman2020 1,310]

I have a lot of feedback about the sim, but the autogen building placement is orders of magnitude better than the default autogen in any other sim.  (As long as they don't add any more 'tall building' bugs)

Both of the houses I grew up in are there. One has a distinct red garage/barn, it is there and the right color.

A neighbors house had a distinct red orange roof, it's there and the right color.

My high school, which has unique architecture (only 2 schools in the US ever built with weird circular sections) is there and the right general shape.  The AI had to create a unique shaped building!

The BlackShark AI has done a way better job than anything has before. 

For some other parts of the world with different styles of buildings it may not be as close a match, but they seem to be working on that with each World Update.

Edit - personally as good as the new autogen is, if I were the producer of the sim I would investigate expanding the capability of the autogen system and feeding the photogrammetry data into it in many areas to create even better autogen, vs directly loading that data into the sim which results in the 'melted buildings' look.

Edited December 11, 2020 by marsman2020

[desbean 357]

4 hours ago, AviatorMan said:

But interestingly I have found some cities that are not on the list that seem accurate to me. La Rochelle, France for example, a city which I have visited and am familiar with. The harbour has two distinctive gateway stone towers that appear accurate. It looks photogrammetric to me. So I am wondering if the list  of photogrammetric represented cities  is complete?

I wonder the same. Buildings in Richmond, Va. downtown and surrounding look as they actually are.

[Blackthorn 12]

6 hours ago, cobalt said:

Moreover, in my exploration of the world in MSFS, I find that even mountain huts in the middle of nowhere, barns on isolated farms, etc. are all there, right where they should be according to Open Street Map.

I actually wonder how they do it because Open Street Map is missing a lot of data on building footprints - at least that's my memory of it when I was trying to use it to create scenery for Aerofly. I used to end up with very sparse buildings in some towns in the US using OSM. (The UK was OK because I could use Ordnance Survey data.) Likewise the Bing aerial images they use seem better in many places than I recall. It seems like they have access to better data than us mere mortals.

[Bosco19 198]

Some rural areas get a total fail. My home, outside of Santa Fe New Mexico, is non-existant. As are the roads leading to it, and the multiple large subdivisions surrounding it. The Auto-Gen representations are completely invented and inaccurate. 

[Huascar 179]

On 12/12/2020 at 10:14 AM, Bosco19 said:

Some rural areas get a total fail. My home, outside of Santa Fe New Mexico, is non-existant. As are the roads leading to it, and the multiple large subdivisions surrounding it. The Auto-Gen representations are completely invented and inaccurate. 

I have to agree. In my estimation, “invented” is a good way to put it.