This seems all a confusing hodge-podge of combined problems. My worst photogammed city is Los Angeles downtown adjacent KLAX. The stuttering in that area landing from east to west at KLAX can be horrific. But I have tested turning off photogamm. for that area and though the stutters are reduced, they are by no means eliminated. So it's not just photogamm. in some large cities, base performance regardless of photogamm. is still not right.

Is it better at certain hours of a flying day on certain days of a flying week in my time zone (PST) compared to other hours and days in other time zones when the servers are more or less tasked because of more or fewer flyers pinging the servers? I think so? I am not sure. I wish we could cache that stuff offline and not live, downloading what we need when we need it and not have to ping a server live on the fly. I think that's the issue. Why we don't have the choice is puzzling. Or if we do and I don't know of it, then please educate me of that possibility.

United001  

4 hours ago, harpsi said:

Is this a new technique for the way we look at cities or buildings

It's not really a new technique, the idea dates from around 1840 when it was proposed by a French surveyor as a technique to use photographs from various angles to help map terrain, the idea took hold and the term photogrammetry came from a European architect, who coined the phrase in the title of an article he wrote about the technique.

It can use something as simple as a stereoscopic view from two angles, to more complex things such as analysing shadow lengths, heat radiation and such, and it can be used in some very creative ways. One of the most interesting ones in modern times, was it being used to determine the location of Osama Bin Laden.

As we know, he was in a compound in Pakistan. Intelligence services suspected this based on mobile phone calls which were made from phones which sometimes were in the compound, and were sometimes in local markets buying quite extravagant food supplies. From this it was determined that 'someone important' was in that compound. Satellites and recon drones were tasked with observing the compound, but little real information on who was there could be gained from this since they were limited to mostly top-down views, however, it was observed that one person would exercise in what was clearly a special place in the yard of the compound reserved mainly for that person for his daily time outside.

Osama Bin Laden was pretty tall, noticeably taller than most other people, and it was observed on top-down views that the 'special person' using that portion of the yard appeared to cast a longer shadow that other people who went in the yard. From this, they knew that there was someone pretty tall who was evidently special, and in hiding and who was treated very well. From this they surmised there was a good chance it was Bin Laden. It was on the basis of this intelligence that the mission to get him was ordered by then-US president Barack Obama, when intelligence services reported that there was a reasonable degree of certainty that it was Bin Laden in that compound in briefings to Obama. They were not absolutely certain of that until the mission took place, but it shows you what photogrammetry can do. 

Edited May 20, 20215 yr by Chock

Currently, I have PG off most of the time. In many areas it looks not so good if I am too far (melted buildings, pyramides) or too close (clunky buildings and vegetation). But I hope it will get better in due course. At least MSFS/ASOBO said thy will look into it.

5 hours ago, Chock said:

but it shows you what photogrammetry can do

That's some very interesting facts, thanks for sharing with us.

5 hours ago, Nemo said:

Currently, I have PG off most of the time. In many areas it looks not so good if I am too far (melted buildings, pyramides) or too close (clunky buildings and vegetation). But I hope it will get better in due course. At least MSFS/ASOBO said thy will look into it.

You are never going to be able to get super close and read the numbers on the mailbox using aerial photography.  That would require accessing something like Google Street maps. I can see that having privacy issues in addition to the technical ones.

4 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

You are never going to be able to get super close and read the numbers on the mailbox using aerial photography.  ...

That's not what I expect or necessarily want. Please don't over-interpret what I said. Make a short flight to CYTZ (Toronto City Airport) landing at RW 24. If you like how Toronto city looks like in a distance between 15 and 10-8 nm, ... good for you.

Edited May 21, 20215 yr by Nemo

The unfortunate thing with the Goldies photogrammetry is that it's of 2014-2016 and things have changed a bit since then. I find it a bit annoying flying up the coast looking at the roads half dug up for the light rail etc 🙂

On 5/20/2021 at 2:47 PM, Dominique_K said:

Many people say that and  it puzzles me. I do not find the Arc de Triomphe image particularly appealing but post apocalyptic ? It looks a good approximation of the Paris rooftops to me. 

If you allow your eyes to do what they naturally do, and look straight at the Arc in the centre of the image, everything looks fine. It's when you force yourself to look at the rooftops in the foreground that you see they are 'melted'. I thought it looked fine too, until I did that after people criticised it. And I'm a photographer, used to looking around my main point of focus!🙄😊