Hey,

I think Simheaven refers to Microsoft's Building Footprints.

https://github.com/microsoft/USBuildingFootprints

Yes. Also, with even more interesting detail:-

https://github.com/microsoft/GlobalMLBuildingFootprints

Extract
"
Introduction

Bing Maps is releasing open building footprints around the world. We have detected 1.2B buildings from Bing Maps imagery between 2014 and 2023 including Maxar, Airbus, and IGN France imagery. The data is freely available for download and use under ODbL. This dataset includes our other releases.

Updates

• 2023-06-05 - Combining all building footprint releases into one distribution. Total footprints: 1.2B. Footprints with height: 174M. Updated coverage map and associated features. Other data sources will remain unchanged.
• 2023-05-31 - added 49M updated footprints and 10M height attributes from Vexcel and Maxar imagery. Biggest contributions are Nigeria (18M), United States (9M), and Burkina Faso (7M).
• 2023-05-18 - added 77M buildings heights to the US and Western Europe. See Coverage map.
  .......contd...
  "

 

Edited July 7, 20232 yr by Paul J

1 hour ago, Paul J said:

Bing Maps is releasing open building footprints around the world. We have detected 1.2B buildings from Bing Maps imagery between 2014 and 2023 including Maxar, Airbus, and IGN France imagery. The data is freely available for download and use under ODbL.

Microsoft! So generous.

3 hours ago, Paul J said:

Bing Maps is releasing open building footprints around the world. We have detected 1.2B buildings from Bing Maps imagery between 2014 and 2023 including Maxar, Airbus, and IGN France imagery. The data is freely available for download and use under ODbL. This dataset includes our other releases.

Yep, these are now being used to great effect inside Simheaven's latest sceneries. The v3 ones even include the recently added height information from Bing. I believe this is the same footprint data used inside MFS 

I just finally put my 8TB HDDS full of orthos to rest and will rely on auto-ortho whenever using XP12 from this point on.

While this is a great tool, there are many issues with it, like 2D-Clouds being shown on the ground and terrain patches not being properly rendered. The first is not even something that could be solved, as far as I am aware. Nevertheless, as my XP12 has dramatically been reduced, I believe this move makes sense.

8 hours ago, GCBraun said:

Finalmente puse mi HDDS de 8 TB lleno de ortofotos para descansar y confiaré en auto-orto cada vez que use XP12 a partir de este momento.

Si bien esta es una gran herramienta, tiene muchos problemas, como que las nubes 2D se muestren en el suelo y los parches de terreno no se representen correctamente. El primero ni siquiera es algo que pueda resolverse, que yo sepa. Sin embargo, como mi XP12 se ha reducido drásticamente, creo que este movimiento tiene sentido.

Maybe in the future there will be a real time solution for 2d mubes but without manual correction even mfs has problems with that.

 

For me the future is not orthos, in three years of mfs I'm tired of always seeing the eternal end of summer in my usual fly area, I hope that through AI and high quality textures we will get realistic terrains with their corresponding changes in spring, summer etcp

1 hour ago, Aglos77 said:

For me the future is not orthos, in three years of mfs I'm tired of always seeing the eternal end of summer in my usual fly area, I hope that through AI and high quality textures we will get realistic terrains with their corresponding changes in spring, summer etcp

Well, Bijan had shown that terrain masks were pretty good for modifying ortho textures to fake a seasonal change.

Generic ground textures make my eyes bleed. No matter how good or sofisticated system you use (I'm looking at you, Outerra), it's never really matching the real world. Ortho + post-processing is the way to go in future.

Is it possible to get a single tile with a (much) higher quality mesh? The mesh used here seems very low-res, there's an area in particular I would love a detailed mesh for. Can you somehow make a tile in Ortho4XP, use the files from that and combine it with the ortho downloaded or is that not possible? I know I could just make a tile and move that further up to take priority but would also love to retain the dynamic ZL quality download function.