Some areas of the US have very high DEM levels (super detailed land contours/cliffs/mountains). However some areas seem to be very low DEM, and it’s hard to tell which is which ahead of time.
One area I would have assumed would be super high DEM would be central California. However I just loaded into L05 and the mountains surrounding the airport are essentially smooth blobs when they should be jaggedy and have sharp relief and textures.
So I’m wondering if this area is supposed to have higher quality DEM and it’s just not loading on my end, or if it really is just low quality all around here. Thanks.
While they improved the overall DEM, the only places that normally have much higher DEM/TIN for the US is those areas covered in WUII and WUX, and even then, it usually only covers areas specified within the notes that have enhanced PG. So, yea, most areas are not overly detailed as we’d like. Kern is not one of those areas.
Two things you could double check, is just to make sure those WU’s are streaming to see if it makes any small difference in that area.
I’ve attached three screenshots of what I’m seeing there.
If you want some detailed airports (around the world) that seemed to just start showing up without any real explanation, see this thread (I know this doesn’t help with the DEM issue you brought up):
appreciate you checking for me. yeah it looks the same on yours as it does mine. i had thought the 2 USA WU’s increased the DEM level across most of the US, but guess I was wrong. Pretty wild somewhere like central california still is using msfs2020-style DEM when there HAS to be much higher quality in existence.
It really shows its age when comparing to places like Queenstown, NZ. The terrain looks hyper realistic there. Wish it was like that across more of the world let alone USA.
I’ve also noticed some really crummy DEM in regions north of there. I usually fly out of KAUN and that area is fine, but whenever I go into the area circled below I see a lot of rounded-off mountains and triangular aberrations on even more gentle terrain (very noticeable with shadows at low sun angles).
A couple times I thought I was having server/network issues, but after the last time I realized it’s pretty much the same area every time, so you might be onto something here. I’ll check again soon to confirm.
