Satellite imagery streaming for X-Plane

[rka 916]

Just now, tonywob said:

No developers = a dead platform. Driving developers away is the worst possible thing they could do right now. 

You are aware that no users = a dead platform pretty much too?

[tonywob 4,779]

6 minutes ago, rka said:

You are aware that no users = a dead platform pretty much too?

Where are you getting the "no users" or "dead platform" from?. 

X-Plane has users and most of them seem fairly content and understand what they have bought. You clearly aren't happy with X-Plane and that's fine, but I question why you still use the product, frequent this forum and derail threads when it clearly isn't and can't be what you want. 

[rka 916]

30 minutes ago, tonywob said:

Where are you getting the "no users" or "dead platform" from?. 

I was quoting your previous comment. I just changed the word "developer" to the word "user".

[MrBitstFlyer 3,910]

I've ignored hist posts for a while as they add nothing but negativity to this forum.  

[Brian Mackie 123]

“as a consumer you already have what you want in other products”… I don’t believe ‘the best of both worlds’ really applies in this instance, given the evident high interest in ortho shown across XP forums, for years. What your consumer wants (and so do I) is the finest flight model, weather, ATC etc and excellent scenery in one package. Sure, right now, that's more aspiration than hope. Real world aviators know that an accurate view of the scenery is important (unless you’re in a cloud without an instrument rating, in which case you may rapidly lose interest in life).

Edited November 11, 2022 by Brian Mackie

[mSparks 2,123]

just a reminder because it sounds like some people dont realise XP has ortho coming out of its ears

https://github.com/oscarpilote/Ortho4XP

the solution in the OP is truly a brilliant idea. only went up in april, so dont expect it to be perfected yet?

5 hours ago, tonywob said:

Where are you getting the "no users" or "dead platform" from?. 

He uses windows,

No developers = no users = a dead platform.

and from the OP

Quote

All testing is done on Ubuntu 20.04.

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by mSparks

[Baber20 1,504]

Ok after a tiring few hours I finally got the program working. Yes the program, not the SIM. After configuring everything, Xplane 12 or his program refused to stream in orthos for some reason. I registered an account on GitHub and opened up a discussion thread with the author of this program. He has yet to find the solution since we believe I did everything correct and he is not sure what's wrong. His OS is not windows so that is not helping either. On a plus side I now know atleast the basic commands in python and powershell so it was kind of productive.

It is a very ambitious project and will probably take a while to fully mature granted the dev continues to work on this. Do know that in its current state it has absolutely no UI. I do hope he finds some programmers to work with him on this as I believe this can be huge for X-Plane.

Austin really underestimates how many people actually use orthos. 

[mSparks 2,123]

28 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

Ok after a tiring few hours I finally got the program working. Yes the program, not the SIM. After configuring everything, Xplane 12 or his program refused to stream in orthos for some reason. I registered an account on GitHub and opened up a discussion thread with the author of this program. He has yet to find the solution since we believe I did everything correct and he is not sure what's wrong. His OS is not windows so that is not helping either. On a plus side I now know atleast the basic commands in python and powershell so it was kind of productive.

linux has FUSE (among others), that makes it very straightforward to create custom filesystems such as in his approach. I wasn't aware that's even possible on windows, since its mostly still using a 16bit filesystem with some later tech hacked on. So not surprised you are having issues (see my post before yours).

this is the kind of "just works" on nix I was talking about in other threads, as soon as people get into this more advanced computing windows just gets dropped, not to mention you are missing all the console output that makes it simple to track down problems...

45 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I do hope he finds some programmers

devs - especially good ones - have all switched to linux, like big time. this likely already pretty much works on Linux, and I'm pretty doubtful any windows users will pick up development... Not impossible, just unlikely - imho.

49 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

Austin really underestimates how many people actually use orthos. 

I don't think he does.

I just don't think LR see it as a problem for them to solve, Austin has been pretty clear that his goal is "better than orthos" existing orthophoto solutions generally meet peoples needs at low cost.

Austins "main" customers outside of mobile is commercial, NC "free" use is generally fine, but as soon as you get into the commercial space prices start hitting 10s of thousands of dollars a tile, and his commercial customers have zero interest in spending that on ortho.

 

[Baber20 1,504]

38 minutes ago, mSparks said:

 

Austin has been pretty clear that his goal is "better than orthos" 

I am genuinely curious about this. What do you think his game plan is here? In one of his recent interviews, I have heard him saying that he has already asked Ben to look into next gen stuff for the scenery. Then there was this some team in East Europe (?) that was supposedly working on scenery stuff. 

[mSparks 2,123]

3 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I am genuinely curious about this. What do you think his game plan is here? In one of his recent interviews, I have heard him saying that he has already asked Ben to look into next gen stuff for the scenery. Then there was this some team in East Europe (?) that was supposedly working on scenery stuff. 

I can only guess.

But AI is getting very good at drawing 2D art these days, so its technically already possible to do miles better than the baked in clouds/shadows/buildings/cars/planes we get with ortho, just by feeding in free low res ortho, OSM data and other sources...

 

issue is then back to file size vs bandwidth vs compute vs vendor lock in....

[GCBraun 2,440]

Users are more important than developers to keep an ecossytem alive. Just see what happened with P3D after MSFS launched. And even though I have been using XP12 quite a lot recently, even some hardcore XP developers have been targeting MSFS to boost their income.

As for this OS discussion, 96.5% of Steam users use some sort of Windows variation. That is compared to 1.28& using Linux (growing basically due to the SteamDeck, which I have and love). Therefore, as a Windows user that likes to benefit from all available flight-sims (MSFS, DCS and XP12), it is only reasonable to assume that most mainstream XP developers would never stop supporting Windows users.

[Beerz 133]

i love xp12 the way it is, don't care really for satellite scenery....i just want great realistic payware/addons👍i find xp12 more fun to fly then the other sim😉

[UKflyer 630]

really do love xplane sometimes 😎

[mSparks 2,123]

6 hours ago, GCBraun said:

most mainstream XP developers would never stop supporting Windows users.

most "mainstream developers" today make software exclusively for android and iphone.

Most if not all XP freeware developers these days are using linux and do free stuff because developing on linux is a pleasure, they want what they are developing and dont mind sharing with like minded people.

But yes, I do agree, $70 windows addons for XP wont be going away any time soon - at least as long as windows users represent a significant portion of xplane users spending money.

It is also however pretty symbolic that perhaps the most talked about addon for xplane 12 over the last 3 years (streaming satellite images) is out with virtually no windows support.

Edited November 12, 2022 by mSparks

[GCBraun 2,440]

4 minutes ago, mSparks said:

most "mainstream developers" today make software exclusively for android and iphone.

I said "mainstram XP developers" such as Airfoilabs, Toliss, Aerobask, Rotate...of course I am not referring to Candy Crush makers.

Not sure what addon you are talking about, but if it does not support windows, then probably I am not interested anyway.

Edited November 12, 2022 by GCBraun