Future Sat imagery updates

[chatman 29]

Hi,

 

I hope this has not been coverd yet but do we know how future updates to satellite images wil be incorporated into MSFS?

Google updates their pictures, depending on locaton, about once a year. I don't know how frequently Microsoft does this.

But will they then need to release an update to the world updates or can they just inject the new imagery and AI does the rest?

 

Thanks for any insight to the matter.

[sightseer 895]

I don't know their process or how long it takes but , in general, the new imagery would have to be cleaned of artifacts like clouds and their shadows and color corrected to some degree and then the new tiles would need BlackShark AI to add buildings and maybe trees(not sure about trees - maybe thats Azure AI??) and then after thats all done, I think it gets incorporated into the sim during a World update.

It isnt as easy as just putting new imagery in.

Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable than I can add more info.

Edited February 9, 2022 by sightseer

[Rudiii 257]

1 hour ago, chatman said:

Hi,

 

I hope this has not been coverd yet but do we know how future updates to satellite images wil be incorporated into MSFS?

Google updates their pictures, depending on locaton, about once a year. I don't know how frequently Microsoft does this.

But will they then need to release an update to the world updates or can they just inject the new imagery and AI does the rest?

 

Thanks for any insight to the matter.

It'll all depend on where the data is sourced from. Microsoft are not a mapping company themselves, they just buy data to use.

For example, much of the lower level UK data comes from the UK's own national mapping organisation; Ordinance Survey.  The low level French data comes from Institut Geographique National. In Washington State, USA it comes from Vexcel Imaging. In New Zealand it comes from Maxar.

So it'll all depend on the availability and cost of the data. This same reasoning is why there is such big variations in the quality of the data.

Google have far more invested into mapping and although they do use the methods above, they also collect their own data. Google Maps has over a billion users a month and mapping is a big priority for them. 

Edited February 9, 2022 by Rudiii

[TooLowTooSlow 214]

Interesting topic. I live in Hong Kong and have absolutely no idea which are the largest mapping companies in China. I know Baidu, Tencent ands Alibaba are all involved and are, in one way or another, direct competitors to MS. Maybe we will all need to wait quite a bit before China is brought up to scratch in the sim. Pity, gorgeous country to fly across !... 

Of a similar vein, does anyone know how and why any specific region is selected by MS for the world updates?

I have always been baffled by Japan being the 1st one for example ! I was pleased with that particular choice as it is my corner of the 'hood but it did surprise me a great deal😛  

Cheers,

2Low2Slow

[JimBrown 596]

4 hours ago, sightseer said:

I think it gets incorporated into the sim during a World update.

Not quite. Updated imagery is added to the back end servers and streamed to your sim as needed.

Last I heard, there is over a petabyte (1,000 terabytes, 1,000,000 gigabytes (roughly)) of terrain imagery that makes up the world we see in the sim. Photogrammetry is included in that terrain imagery. Autogen buildings are not, the terrain tiles have markers that tell the sim what autogen to place where, which is then loaded from your local drive.

...jim

 

[sluihn 68]

This is interesting.... the image that is presented in the menu when you pop pick a plane and a location is updated to include my neighborhood but in the sim it is not present....  bummer.

Ymmv

Blue skies up

 

[sightseer 895]

1 hour ago, JimBrown said:

Not quite.

Thanks 🙂  What I said would be impossible.