11 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

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

The OP.

https://github.com/kubilus1/autoortho

Edited November 12, 20223 yr by mSparks

6 minutes ago, mSparks said:

The OP.

https://github.com/kubilus1/autoortho

Yeah, good luck for the dev, but until a practical solution like MSFS streaming comes about, I will keep filling my 8Tb HDDs with orthos.

Edited November 12, 20223 yr by GCBraun

27 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

Yeah, good luck for the dev, but until a practical solution like MSFS streaming comes about, I will keep filling my 8Tb HDDs with orthos.

Its already practical, just not on so much on windows.

His solution is to impliment a custom local filesystem for serving xplane with networked ground textures instead of a local hard drive. Very simple, robust and elegant solution for linux users with decades of open source development behind it vs non on windows (which is still stuck on 255 characters max for filenames).

My guess would be he was already serving his ortho from an nfs drive and found it worked well enough that with some tweaks it could work via the internet.

Pretty sure Im gonna contribute my cloudless ortho stuff to this sometime over the next couple of years...

Thats also linux only atm

 

Edited November 12, 20223 yr by mSparks

11 hours ago, Beerz said:

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😉

Exactly! Why can't people understand that not everything is measurable on a linear, one dimensional scale? THIS is not necessarily better or worse than THAT! 

My idea of the perfect simulator for home use is the flight model, system representation, and smoothness of Aerowinx PSX (but with more airplanes) with the runway and airport environment of X-Plane, an intelligent ATC that is not available from anyone at this time, improved weather and real traffic in relation to when and where you are flying (also historic weather and traffic, with related ATC). I'm pretty happy with the world  representation we have in X-Plane and only from time to time I like to experiment with the visuals of some places in FlightSimulator (after a while you get tired of buzzing your own building).

But I do not demand everyone else to share the same priorities, of course.

Andrea

Nice proof of concept. Looks like a good way to prevent having thousands of ortho folders in scenery_packs.ini, although I'm not sure about the drawbacks like increased loading times.

 

Besides that, orthos are a dead-end technology, unless you're sitting on an unlimited supply of source imagery, CPU time and storage space. Just consider all the drawbacks:

• Licensing and supplier issues
• Artifacts (clouds) and coloring issues
• Inconsistent quality (zoom levels)
• No variations (night, seasons)
• Insane storage space requirements

A well tuned, highly granular procedural autogen system does away with all of that. Just look at X-World offering "I can see my house" on entire continents at the cost of a few dozen ZL16 ortho tiles. And then imagine what could be done with a few gigabytes worth of more varied art assets and source data.

18 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Nice proof of concept. Looks like a good way to prevent having thousands of ortho folders in scenery_packs.ini, although I'm not sure about the drawbacks like increased loading times.

Do we know the quality of the streamed data or is that configurable?  I'm not sure about the storage requirements being insane with storage as cheap as it is for large drives.

I use the Map enhancement tool in MSFS which has a high lod option which gives far better ortho than default, so I'll keep my eye on this option for XP12.

2 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Looks like a good way to prevent having thousands of ortho folders in scenery_packs.ini, although I'm not sure about the drawbacks like increased loading times.

I have all my orthos in 6 folders, one for each continent (I don't fly Antarctica) so a total of six entries in scenery_packs.ini
Did not notice an increase in loading time, I'm assuming XP only loads a preset area around the starting point.
This method saves a bit of space as opposed to have a folder for each tile because often DSF are duplicated across folders.

21 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Do we know the quality of the streamed data or is that configurable?

Since you're building ortho tiles for a certain zoom level, I'd assume that you decide how much detail you want to see while generating the initial tiles. To my interpretation, the tool then simply fetches the images that correspond to the definitions in the DSF file.

 

21 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I'm not sure about the storage requirements being insane with storage as cheap as it is for large drives.

Depends on what you want. Orthos for a single continent or limited geographical area are pretty manageable, but globetrotting flightsimmers usually want more.

IIRC, in X-Plane the globe is divided into 16383 tiles of 100 x 100 km. Assuming that 35% of these are landmass or coasta areas that need ortho, you have 5735 tiles that need covering. Further assuming that you have a constant zoom level of 16 for each tile and that a single tile with terrain DSF data weighs in at 2.4 GB, you need around 13.8 TB worth of storage space. Now add night and seasonal variations into the mix and you end of with a single tile requiring around 10 GB (one set of terrain data and five sets of textures for four seasons plus night), which bumps the storage requirement to 57.4 TB.

I dare to say that a procedural terrain with varied art assets, high-resolution elevation, vector and land use data produces a very detailed terrain with at best 500 GB of required storage (XP12's global scenery requires 50 GB so far). This is a signifcantly more efficient approach!

 

 

19 hours ago, peroni said:

I have all my orthos in 6 folders, one for each continent (I don't fly Antarctica) so a total of six entries in scenery_packs.ini
Did not notice an increase in loading time, I'm assuming XP only loads a preset area around the starting point.
This method saves a bit of space as opposed to have a folder for each tile because often DSF are duplicated across folders.

One folder per continent was my initial approach as well, but for XP11, I settled for one folder per tile as Ortho4XP somehow didn't like combined folders.

On 11/11/2022 at 9:20 AM, rka said:

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

Very interesting read through here. Let me re-word the statement from rka - A decline in users is not great for the success of a platform and suggests that improvements or a change in direction is required. There will always be a dedicated core that places scenery as a low priority. The introduction of new scenery technology was the driving force that pushed the incredible success of Flight Simulator in 2020 and pulled thousands of XP users to the FS platform (and for $60 out of the box with zero addons!)

A strong will to stream scenery for XP would be a welcome step to significantly improve the sim. With vision and commitment it can be done. Scenery is the central feature that separates XP from FS. Clearly, the average flight simulator enthusiast is drawn to a world with the most accurate geography, buildings and textures.

47 minutes ago, Doering said:

Very interesting read through here. Let me re-word the statement from rka - A decline in users is not great for the success of a platform and suggests that improvements or a change in direction is required. There will always be a dedicated core that places scenery as a low priority. The introduction of new scenery technology was the driving force that pushed the incredible success of Flight Simulator in 2020 and pulled thousands of XP users to the FS platform (and for $60 out of the box with zero addons!)

A strong will to stream scenery for XP would be a welcome step to significantly improve the sim. With vision and commitment it can be done. Scenery is the central feature that separates XP from FS. Clearly, the average flight simulator enthusiast is drawn to a world with the most accurate geography, buildings and textures.

My Assorto Corsa also needs accurate buildings and textures 🙂

I would understand the need for orthos but if we  consider that 60-70% of users fly the big birds that I believe would be 30k or 40k AGL above any building ,  do you see them from that high , are you able to judge which is which , do you see the textures or the paint that is falling  ? asking, because i have never set in airplane nor i have been higher in altitude than my building terrace that would be roughly 100 ft if i am not mistaken for a 7 storey or rather on the 36th floor . 

For GA + Gliders + helis 100% accuracy needed . 

Edited November 14, 20223 yr by Humpty

2 hours ago, Humpty said:

I would understand the need for orthos but if we  consider that 60-70% of users fly the big birds that I believe would be 30k or 40k AGL above any building ,  do you see them from that high , are you able to judge which is which , do you see the textures or the paint that is falling  ?

Where do you get this number from?
The only official data we have for XP11 has GA as the topmost flown type of plane just a hair above airliners. 

http://dashboard.x-plane.com/

27 minutes ago, peroni said:

Where do you get this number from?
The only official data we have for XP11 has GA as the topmost flown type of plane just a hair above airliners. 

http://dashboard.x-plane.com/

Not from anywhere , those are my thoughts. 

3 hours ago, peroni said:

Where do you get this number from?
The only official data we have for XP11 has GA as the topmost flown type of plane just a hair above airliners. 

http://dashboard.x-plane.com/

thats first party planes tho... no one flies LR default tubeliners because they suck pretty bad.

zibo dominates 3pd flights. and ga is fractions of a percent after the airbus's.

17 minutes ago, mSparks said:

thats first party planes tho... no one flies LR default tubeliners because they suck pretty bad.

The Flights by Aircraft Category chart is first-party planes only, not overall flights in the sim?

Edited November 15, 20223 yr by OlliePen

7 hours ago, OlliePen said:

The Flights by Aircraft Category chart is first-party planes only, not overall flights in the sim?

kinda, if you look at the breakdown of LR/1st party aircraft, the c172s and sf50s make up the majority of the flights.

If you look at 3rd party its airbus's and 737s.

with 50/50 LR vs 3PD in the stats.

Edited November 15, 20223 yr by mSparks