8 hours ago, styckx said:

This thread gives me a migraine 

Then turn it off and take two aspirin.

9 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

OK just to clear a few more things up.

The photography used is not "satellite" it is aerial photography from specialised mapping aircraft that fly mapping runs in a grid pattern. The mapping photos are flown lower at much higher resolution over the middle of cities, from a higher altitude over the suburbs and very high altitude in more remote areas.

Photogrammetry is only possible with the low altitude runs as you need several passes over a building to get a 3D recreation.

Hence the boundary of what is possible for photogrammetry is often also the boundary of the hi-res low altitude photography.  Hence the same point that photogrammetry stops will often also show a drop in ground terrain resolution.

Turning photogrammetry off should only effect 3D buildings and structures like docks and bridges. It should not change the ground textures.

Since all of the higher resolution data is streamed (all data not stored on your machine), I wasn't sure if those who chose to run without PG would get the textures underlying PG areas.  Thats one of the reasons I started this discussion (hopefully discussion).

PG is a 3D model of an area that contains point data and imagery.  The point data is higher resolution than the surrounding data so it must be made to fit.  It wouldn't look right to have a ridge or ditch following the boundaries of the PG regions.

Do you have any information of the role of BlacksHARK ai?  Does it only affect PG areas or does it play a role in creating and placing autogen?  As I understand, it looks at imagery and extrudes a building out of it so it fits perfectly over the imagery.  I know I must have seen it but I don't know where and can't be certain (which I think was the goal of Asobo and they did a good job)

Blackshark ai is used to populate “autogen” assets. The ai analyzes the satellite/aerial imagery for certain features such as building footprints, roof types, colors, vegetation, etc. to build and place autogen objects. From what I’ve seen, It is probably some of the most impressive technology used in the sim. 
 

Link to MSFS partnership video:

 

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by snglecoil

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.
Ridges and ditches are not defined by PG, but by the underlying mesh.

What you see on your monitor essentially consists of at least three planes or layers:

• the underlying mesh,
• the overlying phototextures,
• the buildings.

These planes are created independently and then matched. PG defines only buildings.

Which resolution of the phototextures is used - especially if higher resolution textures are used for the representation of PG-cities even if PG is switched off - I can't say though.

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by asanosho

6 minutes ago, asanosho said:

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.
Ridges and ditches are not defined by PG, but by the underlying mesh.

What you see on your monitor essentially consists of at least three planes or layers:

• the underlying mesh,
• the overlying phototextures,
• the buildings.

These planes are created independently and then matched. PG defines only buildings.

Which resolution of the phototextures is used - especially if higher resolution textures are used for the representation of PG-cities even if PG is switched off - I can't say though.

When i disable e.g Seattle PG, the sat imagery isnt the same as with PG on. I think the PG has its own ground textures and its way more sharp than with PG off. I could have posted a picture but its a chore with this imgur word not allowed.. 

@snglecoil  here is another video.  It still isnt completely clear though.  It makes me wonder if a new set of autogen models are created and then downloaded when new PG regions are released (to better match the updated ground imagery)

 

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by sightseer

1 hour ago, Kaboki said:

1 hour ago, asanosho said:

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.
Ridges and ditches are not defined by PG, but by the underlying mesh.

What you see on your monitor essentially consists of at least three planes or layers:

• the underlying mesh,
• the overlying phototextures,
• the buildings.

These planes are created independently and then matched. PG defines only buildings.

Which resolution of the phototextures is used - especially if higher resolution textures are used for the representation of PG-cities even if PG is switched off - I can't say though.

When i disable e.g Seattle PG, the sat imagery isnt the same as with PG on. I think the PG has its own ground textures and its way more sharp than with PG off. I could have posted a picture but its a chore with this imgur word not allowed..

As I understood it PG doesn‘t differentiate between ground, building, car, tree, etc. It‘s one coherent mesh (or do you say meshes?). That‘s why it‘s probably so difficult to „clean up“. Terrain, and so ditches and ridges, are part of it.

4 hours ago, sightseer said:

Thank you very much for the pic.  To me there is a less jarring transition in the textures over to the right for some reason.  maybe settings or hardware?  And the thing I was most curious to see was what color roofs the buildings and houses would have.  I often find the autogen to be too pale but those houses seem darker and they fit in well.  I wonder if BlackShark AI plays any role in creating the autogen?  I don't think it does but I don't know.

Thanks again for being willing to participate in the thread.

A bit more information for you, regarding the non-PG screenshot I posted earlier. I have all graphics settings on Ultra. Alienware Aurora R11, 32 GB ram, Intel i7-10700F, GeForce RTX 2080 Super.

What is the download size for PG in a big city like NY?

ns

5 hours ago, Kaboki said:

I think the PG has its own ground textures and its way more sharp than with PG off.

You are correct.  I decided to do my own test...

Sydney AU PG on:

 

Sydney AU Autogen

 

Gold Coast PG on:

 

Gold Coast Autogen

 

Gold Coast shot 2 PG on

 

Gold Coast shot 2 Autogen

 

 

That last shot - its hard to believe its the same spot but it is.  In Autogen mode you get the hand made models but its clear that the ground textures are very different.

So you finally decided to test yourself, lol.

Sightseer is correct about YPPF. I just did another flight around this airport and there are no 3 story buildings to spoil reality any more. Maybe it was me and my settings or maybe it was WU7 that cleaned it all up but I can now identify all the buildings that are there and even see my own house more clearly now. What a great sim this is. 🙂

Depending on location I start with Photogrammetry off while grounded.
Once high enough in the air I’ll turn it on, usually past 3k feet.
Reason is…some airports share surrounding cityscape borders ie residential neighborhoods or city buildings right up to the airport’s perimeter fence(KSAN). I don’t wanna see the melted eye sore lego blocks at ground level, while taxiing around the airport. Nothing more pitiful looking than MLS (Melted Lego Syndrome) building and terrain tree photogrammetry at eye level on ground.
Luckily the sim is pretty quick about switching photogrammetry mode on and off (takes under 45 seconds on my system)

Photogrammetry ON

 

Photogrammetry OFF

Edited February 9, 20224 yr by blueshark747

Wow, what a load of angry replies to an innocent post, sheesh. Call the guy lazy, accuse him of having an agenda, jeez. Maybe he could, just turn off PG and try things himself, but it does my head in when I start to read a post and then it goes southwards because someone gets out of bed the wrong side.  Anyway, please don't start slagging me off too!  This whole photogrammetry thing is, of course, purely subjective. If you like it then fly with it on, if not then don't. Simples! For me personally, I stopped flying with PG turned on for the one reason that I prefer to see hi-res autogen structures than the kind of buildings that we see with PG when flying at lower altitudes. Yes, PG scenery can look stunning from a particular distance, depending on the resolution of that particular scenery, but in my mind the autogen that we have in MSFS is a thousand times better than any we have in FSX or P3D. I think Blueshark on his previous post has nailed it. But of course sure, it's just a personal thing.

Edited February 9, 20224 yr by Rockliffe

This will not be news to some, but may be to others. I am one of those who for several months have been unable to use photogrammetry because of severe stuttering (especially near the ground) and therefore have it turned off when I run MSFS. With it off, I have excellent performance even with all settings on ultra, and in general I don't miss PG much, but I have to admit that it really improves the realism of the "photogrammetry cities" compared to autogen. So, I await the fix that I hope will be coming from ASOBO, which they have on their to-do list. But I want to share something I have discovered recently: there are some excellent photogrammetry-based sceneries available on flightsim.to as freeware, that provide extremely detailed and accurate renditions of some cities that work with photogrammetry turned off in the sim. Recent add-ons for Heidelberg, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic are two examples of places I am familiar with and that I can vouch for being amazingly true to life and still allow decent performance (25-30 FPS). To me, at least, this comes as a welcome surprise.

Alienware Aurora R11, 32 GB ram, Intel i7-10700F, GeForce RTX 2080 Super, Ultra graphics settings