On 5/5/2023 at 12:44 PM, MatthiasKNU said:

Dear friends who are all still happy with P3D!

Today I just wanted to introduce you to my work of the last few years - yes, years.
Some time ago I even created a thread here - somewhere - but I can't find it anymore... 🤐

First of all the following:
I'm not the type who likes to advertise his stuff.
The reason for the post here is actually that I was told again and again (actually, also more than years now...) that I should do more advertising.
For example here, because there are still many P3D fans active here who might be interested...

That's why I'm just going to do that now!

So, what have I done?
Well, what many others have already done - created photosceneries. With autogen, of course!

Very briefly, how does one get the idea to create photosceneries?
Well, back then, nearly 10 years ago (remember the time back then, that was before ORBX released something like TE Netherlands!), I wanted to enhance the approach area for my home airport EDDM a bit.
After a lot of reading, trying, deleting and trying again, I had created an area that covered about 40x20 km around Munich Airport.
Everything was created completely manually, every autogen building was placed by hand.
Many people were enthusiastic about it at the time and asked if I could create something like that for XYZ airport .
And yes, in fact I wanted to do that.

Shortly after, I visited Namibia (and that was really great!).
But I didn't like the flights in the sim (remember, at that time there was no openLC Africa!).
And that's when I had the idea to create a photorealistic Africa. It was a huge project, I never thought I could finish.
I have to say the following about this:
I was in my geography bachelor studies at the time. And an important part of it is, of course, the use of GIS software.
I wanted to combine this so that the creation of the sceneries would be easier.

And that's what I did, and created all of Africa photorealistically - in high quality and with accurate autogen.
After I had 800 GB of photosceneries for Africa, I thought - why not other regions?

In the meantime, a lot has happened here. I now use Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 OLI data to detect vegetation, which I refine with vector data, including OSM.
For buildings, I have chosen an AI approach, so that I can also extract building footprints from the RGB images using a convolutional neural network (with the restriction that it only really works well in Africa, as I have trained the model here).
Therefore, in the meantime there are more than 10 Python scripts á 1000-5000 lines of code with which I can create my sceneries - semi-automatically.

In the meantime, I have created all of Europe and Africa, and I am working on South America.
The server storage space is still a problem.
Due to the increased costs, I had to remove Central Africa and all my Asian sceneries from the server - even though I am working on making everything available again.

So, a lot of text...

It's probably best if I just show pictures - across the world, so to speak.

Athens

Marrakech

El Oued

Algiers

Cape Town

Ouagadougou

Somewhere in Ghana

Somewhere in Sierra Leone

Bulgaria

Currently working on Brazil

France

Frankfurt

Serbia

Tirana

Naples

Poland

Germany

Namibia


In the meantime, my sceneries - of course! - also come with comprehensive night lighting.

Furthermore - and I think this is not unimportant:
How big are the sceneries?
Well, I have installed a 4 TB HDD for my sceneries (whole Europe, Africa, half of South America, part of Asia, altogether approx. 60 million km²), on which approx. 2.7 TB are occupied.

A lot of information - including a current overview map - can also be found HERE and HERE.

For questions regarding the download, please write me a private message (preferably in the FSXForum or at FSDeveloper)!

Now, in conclusion, I have no other option but to wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Hello, this looks impressive. I have a question because the module is described in the description on your website, you can get autogen without photoscenery. I would be very interested only in autogen for Poland - by the way, are your additions in P3D v45? How can I get the opportunity to download your autogen for Poland?

 

Best regards

Grzegorz

On 11/27/2023 at 1:51 PM, MatthiasKNU said:

The next one will be...

Sounds like the "Where in the world" feature in Flightsim.com 😂

Looking forward to it!

On 11/29/2023 at 10:11 PM, Grzegorz said:

Hello, this looks impressive. I have a question because the module is described in the description on your website, you can get autogen without photoscenery. I would be very interested only in autogen for Poland - by the way, are your additions in P3D v45? How can I get the opportunity to download your autogen for Poland?

Best regards

Grzegorz

Hi!

I already answered you at FSDevelopers...

Dear all

unfortunately it is no longer possible to upload pictures to abload.de, so I can neither show pictures nor update my overview map today. Sorry!
So it's a bit dry now:
Africa is complete again, Equatorial Guinea, eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe are finished.
A little further to the north-east, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have been added.

Pictures will follow as soon as abload.de accepts uploads again. (Hopefully soon.)

Otherwise, as always, more information here:
https://www.fsxforum.de/viewtopic.php?p=202088

Please note that the overview map is not up to date, for possible changes please check the updates at the bottom - these are current.

Have a nice pre-Christmas time and a nice weekend!

Dear all,

Now I can finally show you the pictures I promised!

Let's start on the west coast of Africa with Equatorial Guinea:

Further south, with eSwatini:

... and Lesotho:

Further north we come to Zimbabwe:

And to the north is Zambia:

To the east we find the small, poor but actually beautiful Malawi:

And Mozambique is not far away either:

Madagascar can be found off the east coast of Africa:

And that's Africa finished!
We continue with 2 countries on the Arabian Peninsula, which close the gap here:
Firstly, Yemen:

And the big wide country of Saudi Arabia!

And that's it for now!

As always, you can find more information and the updated overview map here:
https://www.fsxforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=19503

For everything else, please write a private message as usual!
 

.

Edited February 11, 20242 yr by MatthiasKNU

Another brief sign of life from me and a little insight into what I'm currently working on:

I don't know where are those sceneries, but they look beautiful!

Dear all,

It's been quiet again for a few months.
But I've finished a few countries again - 12 to be precise!

But I would like to start today with something very important, namely an apology!

I had also expressed my initial suspicions here, and after a very nice e-mail communication with FC Scenery, all suspicions were more than dispelled.
My suspicion was simply based on various coincidences, such as the use of the same software and data sources and the coincidence of releases. But my suspicions were unjustified!
It is therefore only fair that I apologise to the FC Scenery team!

But now to the news!

I would like to start in the south-west, with the Kingdom of Jordan!

We continue a little further north, with Lebanon:

The next country in this region is Syria:

Now we're going a bit eastwards, namely to Iraq:

And the big neighbouring country, Iran:

Further north are the Caucasus states, such as Armenia...:

... or Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea:

On the other side of the Caspian Sea we come to Turkmenistan:

Uzbekistan lies in the immediate neighbourhood:

... and even a small country like Kyrgyzstan is not far away:

Tajikistan lies to the south:

And finally, a big, well-known country: Afghanistan!

Sooo, and that's it for the 12 countries!

As always, you can find an overview map of my sceneries here:
https://www.fsxforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=19503

For everything else, please write a private message as always!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Looks really good Matthias! 🤩

Dear all,

Just in time for Easter, I've got another big batch of scenery for you.
This time I've mainly been travelling in southern Asia.

But let's start with the Arabian Peninsula, where two countries are still outstanding.

First of all Kuwait:

... and Qatar:

Then we move on to the country that borders Iran and Afghanistan: Pakistan!

And then comes my highlight for today...
Probably the most complicated scenery I've ever built.

India!

More than 1 billion (!) buildings have been placed.

To the north is Nepal, with its fantastic mountain airfields:

And of course Bhutan is not to be missed!

In the south of India lies the island of Sri Lanka:

And finally, Bangladesh:

As always, you can find all the information here:
https://www.fsxforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=19503

Otherwise - please write me a private message, as always! 🙂

But there is one thing I would like to get rid of in any case:
At the moment I assume that these were the last sceneries I created for the P3D world.

Even I now use the MSFS 99% of the time, and with the release of a long-haul aircraft for the MSFS, the 99 % will certainly become 100 %.
At the same time, I can also see that interest in my sceneries has really, really declined over the last year. Whereas about a year ago I was answering up to 10 PMs a day, now it's maybe 1-2 a week. 

So - from my side, a very, very big THANK YOU to all of you for all your support!

Nevertheless - nothing is set in stone yet, and the servers will continue to run for the time being.

I wish you all a wonderful Easter!

Danke, Matthias! I have a similar reasoning, and I'm also waiting for the 777 😂

Anyway, you've got a PM at FSDeveloper.

Matthias, sorry to ask you - do you have any scripting for the vector data? I am trying to create vector data for Malaysia and for now it does not work. I want to coincide textures for the routes and railways and it does not work. I use ScenProc. I'll be glad on any tips you can give me. 

Dear all,

Perhaps some of you have already noticed that my project page for my photoreal sceneries is no longer accessible.

The reason for this is relatively simple:
I have decided with a heavy heart to discontinue this project after about 8 years.

Believe me, I really didn't take the decision lightly, in the end it was the following reasons that spoke in favour of shutting down the servers:

1. financing. Unfortunately, the server costs had not been covered by donations for almost 2 years, in this year 2024 the total ‘donation’ sum was 0 €, in contrast to server costs in the three-digit range. I had already stopped developing new sceneries some time ago for the same reason. The development of a single country alone cost an average of 200-400 € just in electricity costs.

2. although all my sceneries were available free of charge, the download links have recently been passed on very often, so for some time now downloads have also appeared from regions where I never had a request for my sceneries. In some cases I changed the download links again, I don't want and didn't want scenery downloads from Russia or Iran. Unfortunately, this takes up a lot of time that could be used for other things.

3. friendliness. I don't think I need to write much here, the following PN I received a few weeks ago speaks for itself:
‘Give me all your sceneries! it can't be that you have to ask for download links!’
Yes, that was the whole PN. 1:1 copy-and-paste.

4. demand. Since the release of MSFS2020, the interest in my sceneries has constantly decreased. Whereas about a year ago I was allowed to give out several download links almost every day, last month there were exactly 2. And it's just not worth keeping the servers running.

I hope this makes it a little easier to understand why I have switched off the servers and I also hope that nobody will take offence.

From time to time the question arose as to why I didn't bring the sceneries into the MSFS2020.
Unfortunately, the answer was never particularly well received, but nothing has changed in the matter:
As much as I would like to do so: on the one hand, however, there is no need, as the MSFS is already based on satellite imagery anyway, which is simply much higher resolution and more up-to-date due to constant streaming, which I can provide, and on the other hand, it is simply not possible to add new aerial imagery to such large areas with the MSFS SDK.

However, the core focus of my sceneries has always been on the autogen. And here, too, the MSFS is simply better, as the detection of vegetation and buildings was carried out using large servers and convolutional neural networks.
Even though I myself have used CNNs on rather small areas, my sceneries simply cannot keep up here.

So there's not too much left for me to say at this point, except:
MANY THANKS to all who have supported my sceneries and me in the last years, financially as well as with know-how or simply with their interest and favour in my sceneries.

THANK YOU for that!

@MatthiasKNU and thank you for your incredible work. I am die hard P3D and will be using them for as many years as I have left to sim.