Hi,

Wondering if anyone ever heard of Orthographic for orthophotos?

https://www.patreon.com/cw/orthographic

Never heard of this.

From what I can gather, it's aerial imagery that's been manually colour matched on seams so it looks more seamless (Although the seams are still there from what I can see). He's also taken OSM data and put textures over the top of the aerial imagery where the forests are to try to blend it with the trees that are there, covering up the nice ground detail underneath.

A lot of this stuff was done in the TrueEarth sceneries I did a few years ago, especially Florida (i.e. Baked tree/AO, and colour extraction for vegetation/houses). But in the age of AI, I imagine this process is much much easier now and can be done easier on scale, or with faster image processing libraries

2 hours ago, tonywob said:

Never heard of this.

From what I can gather, it's aerial imagery that's been manually colour matched on seams so it looks more seamless (Although the seams are still there from what I can see). He's also taken OSM data and put textures over the top of the aerial imagery where the forests are to try to blend it with the trees that are there, covering up the nice ground detail underneath.

A lot of this stuff was done in the TrueEarth sceneries I did a few years ago, especially Florida (i.e. Baked tree/AO, and colour extraction for vegetation/houses). But in the age of AI, I imagine this process is much much easier now and can be done easier on scale, or with faster image processing libraries

I would love to have True Earth quality worldwide, if this is another step i that direction, that would be great... I then see zero reason to use the other sim.

14 minutes ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

I would love to have True Earth quality worldwide, if this is another step i that direction, that would be great... I then see zero reason to use the other sim.

I have downloaded the demo tile but it does not appear to be corrected satellite imagery, rather procedurally generated ground polygons based on Open Street Map data (similar to the ground polygons in X-World Pro). Ground tiles are in the correct place, but the colours are faded and low resolution - I do not like the effect. Joining the Patreon appears to allow higher resolution ground tiles.

Congrats to the author for his efforts, but for me satellite imagery is a must.

I regularly try out MSFS2024, but to me the graphics look a little 'cartoony' to me after XP12 with added satellite imagery and the excellent lighting engine. If MSFS2024 modernised its lighting engine it would be a no brainer for me to switch to it, but XP12 is better looking to my eyes WITH satellite imagery.

Although I like the idea behind how orthographic works, I just don't understand why suddenly devs are in rush to release scenery solutions in the minute to midnight, just when big scenery update for XP12 is around the corner. It's like brushing teeth, then eat a cake a minute later.

After looking at the video, it gave me an idea that Lamiran is actually doing something like this, using OSM data to drop textures around the world.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by Pe11e

8 hours ago, Pe11e said:

Although I like the idea behind how orthographic works, I just don't understand why suddenly devs are in rush to release scenery solutions in the minute to midnight, just when big scenery update for XP12 is around the corner. It's like brushing teeth, then eat a cake a minute later.

It'll be backwards compatible, but I agree, this is one reason I essentially paused the work I was doing waiting on this (especially the tiling system)

On 8/4/2026 at 7:05 AM, tonywob said:

A lot of this stuff was done in the TrueEarth sceneries I did a few years ago, especially Florida (i.e. Baked tree/AO, and colour extraction for vegetation/houses). But in the age of AI, I imagine this process is much much easier now and can be done easier on scale, or with faster image processing libraries

I was just up in the REP Kodiak over TE Florida this past weekend. Still looks good - esp the shallow waters!

21 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I regularly try out MSFS2024, but to me the graphics look a little 'cartoony' to me after XP12 with added satellite imagery and the excellent lighting engine.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 🙂👍

I was over both TE FL and TE GB this past weekend. They’re IMHO the best XP scenery ever made (esp TE GB since it was updated for XP12). The TE series is basically the only reason I can still Fly in XP (and P3D 😉).

Tho XP has better lighting, I feel exactly the opposite in sim scenery preference. 🤙