With World Hub Alpha kicking off, what do you all think about developing some community generated recommended standards to use when updating a default airport? It also might help in the approval process.
For example:
Airport - General
Name – Correct per airport’s official website or aeronautical charts
Identifier - Correct per airport’s official website or aeronautical charts
Airport Vicinity (Around perimeter)
Terrain -Inaccurate or anomalous terrain features such as “terrain spikes” are not present
Obstacles – If not present in the real world, no objects affecting flight operations (e.g. trees, windmills, buildings, powerlines, terrain spikes, etc.) are present
Special terrain correctly modeled at airports (Airport is on a hill, platform, or other special terrain features such as TNCS, PAKT, LPMA) Not sure if this is something that can be done with World Hub.
Tree/vegetation size surrounding the airport are accurate (no more huge trees surrounding the runway when there should only be small bushes)
Autogen buildings are accurately sized
Vehicle traffic, if present, doesn’t cross aircraft movement areas
Runways
All are present
Length - ±10 feet from current charts
Width - ±10 feet from current charts
Slope - correct per charts
Elevation - ±10 feet from current charts
Lighting – correct per charts
Composition - correct
Markings - correct
Runway Designations – correct
Runways are free and clear of any hazards (terrain anomalies or objects).
Taxiways
Taxiways are all present with correct designations and sign placement.
Taxiways are free and clear of any hazards (terrain anomalies or objects)
Taxiway light placement is correct
Taxiways are free and clear of any hazards (terrain anomalies or objects impeding flight operations)
Ramp & Airport Facilities
Ramps, tarmac areas, and deice pads are all present and void of any anomalous terrain features such as “terrain spikes”, sinkholes, or uneven terrain causing aircraft to crash while taxing.
Published parking spots / gates are present, correctly positioned, and correctly designated
Jet bridges are correctly placed where present.
Windsock positions are accurate if depicted on aeronautical charts
Helipads found on the airport grounds are present
Control Tower Position – correct per charts
Control Tower Size – accurate for size of airport
Airport terminal building/s are present and accurate
Hangars and other airport buildings are present and accurately sized
All airport communication and navigation frequencies are present and accurate
From what I’ve seen the latest Blackshark A.I. does a marvelous job of extracting details from the most recent imagery and replacing airports but obviously changes that are very recent will sometimes be overlooked. And of course mistakes are still bound to happen be it textures, lighting etc. so the scenery hub is a great idea. My personal opinion is that ideally only pilots with recent intimate knowledge of the airports in question should be allowed to make changes but my gut feeling tells me this won’t be practical for airports and strips that are off the beaten track
Where have you seen the latest Blackshark A.I.? When and how it will replace airports is a big issue to those of us using the World Hub as we would not appreciate hours and hours of work evaporate.
There are many very worthwhile changes that can be made using the World Hub by those unfamiliar with an airport but supported by readily available sources like Bing and Google Maps, AIP and FAA information, Youtube videos and photos, etc. I hope more people get involved to correct airports in MSFS!
Thank you for initiating a set of guidelines for World Hub changes, @XeOperator ! It is a start.
While the adherence to the entire set of qualities cannot be enforced, it is a good list for people using the World Hub to use when making changes! Some individuals may have time or the inclination to make only one or a few small changes, not the entire list at one time. It would be nice if this list was more visible to World Hub users.
There’s a lot on there that we can’t do anything about - cannot edit terrain, vegetation type (only whether it exists or not), or buildings. And the charts are not always correct and/or synced with the aerial that’s currently in the sim, so reliance on charts is hit and miss.
We end up having to do a LOT of educated-guess interpretation.
No way. I’m familiar enough with how small US airports work, airport design standards, and how to interpret an aerial to get it close enough for usability in the sim. There’s really not enough detail available to WH editors, anyway, to get nit-picky enough to need intimate knowledge. About the only thing that could help in that regard, are the taxiway signs, which aren’t readable from aerials and aren’t always apparent in photos.
Other than some QoL improvements to the UI, the biggest things I could use:
Fences, so I can separate the landside pavements (which we’re supposed to cover up) from the airside pavements. This would prevent airports from looking like a giant blob of a parking lot.
Resizeable parking Ts that snap to the parking spot (versus hand-drawing them using painted lines).
A wider, better variety of wind indicators
Fuel tanks (refueling equipment in general)
light, flag, and communication (like an AWOS) poles
If I’m wishing, I’d love a few generic styles of hangars and FBO-style buildings that you don’t have to rescale, just specify type, dimensions, and orientation. Probably outside the scope of the WH on that, but a dude can try.
And there are a lot of procedurally-drawn features that still aren’t right - touchdown zone markings, in-pavement light forcing, and super tiny runway numbers to name a few. Seems like these would be low-hanging fruit, easy to fix, but here we (still) are.
That may be true but others might not be and feasibly that could lead to more mistakes and obsoleteness than the new A.I. data is guilty of. Nontheless I’ll extend my ideal choice of editors to include airport workers, traffic controllers and even simmers that physically visit such places on a regular basis.
First of all, there are moderators that look at the submissions and either send them back with notes or accept them. And they get pretty picky, so I wouldn’t worry about editors making things worse.
Either way, there are over 20k airports in the US alone and you’ll never find an editor with local knowledge, the desire, and the ability to edit a large chunk of them (especially the private or lesser-used strips).
But as I said, the world hub is pretty basic. With the options that are available, you don’t need first-hand experience to do a decent job of fixing the AI errors or changes that have been made since the first AI scrub. We’re not placing rocks and benches here, it’s a fairly high-level scope of project.
It sounds like we can all agree that we want accuracy with World Hub community updates. It’s Asobo that reviews and approves the changes, right? If so, we don’t know what standards they are using in the approval process. As long as there are measures in place to prevent “creative” designs and stick to real world accuracy, we should be ok.
Gotcha, no, it’s pretty heavily moderated. It’s still alpha so standards and expectations are evolving, but overall I think they’re doing a great job. We’re definitely running into a lot of those aforementioned limitations, both in the sim’s baseline engine and the tools that we’ve been allowed in the WH. I’m sure it’ll keep improving. That, or we’ll be made obsolete by the next evolution of AI (but I doubt it).
Oh, I should say: the most frustrating aspect of the World Hub is that when the aerial changes, it can shift the scenery by anywhere from a few feet all the way up to 30’ or so. But we don’t know when the aerials are updated (or even the date of the current edition), so it can essentially take all your work and make it as obsolete as when you first realigned everything, much less dealing with any actual construction changes that have occurred at the airport in the meantime. I really think there needs to be a way to observe and track the Bing aerial changes.
