One thing I’ve noticed FS 2020 relies, where no high quality data is available, on OpenStreetMap data to fill the gaps.
It’s pretty much a fact that this is true, for example if buildings are available in OpenStreetMap, FS 2020 uses its shape (and height if possible) to render them. This has lead to some non-existing tall buildings showing up (I saw a 30-storey building in a town in Spain where none exists, because someone had mistaken the OSM tag building:levels -30- with address number).
So after I discovered this, I’ve been improving a lot of buildings on OSM like crazy, such as adding the heights of buildings, improving the shape, etc. But so far, none has been updated in FS 2020. I was wondering just how often, if at all, the data that FS 2020 has will be updated, because it would be a pity not to keep pulling online data to improve it.
Recently I saw they had added power lines, and using OSM too (since there are some rural areas I had myself mapped many years ago), so any chance of FS refreshing its data once in a while?
They don’t use OpenStreetMap; they use Blackshark.ai which interprets Bing Maps satellite imagery.
As for how frequently they plan to update, that remains to be seen as the game has only been around for about a month. With that said, the first world update is already coming on the 29th, and focuses on Japan.
That is incorrect. The use OpenStreetMap. I can prove it by just showing the exact shape of buildings I mapped a long time ago. They appear exactly the same way.
Now, I am willing to accept that it is BING who uses openstreetmap, since that’s also the case. Buildings that do not appear in OSM, in the same city, don’t appear in Bing either.
For example, how do you explain this non-existent building in FS?
What a coincidence, right? In OpenStreetMap it’s mistakenly tagged with building:levels 30, and lo and behold, the AI of FS also draws a 30-storey building where there’s none. Can you really assert that OSM data is not being, directly or indirectly, used? What is the likelihood that Flight Simulator will interpret there is a 30-storey building (in reality there’s none) at the exact spot where OpenStreetMap has, by mistake, such a building?
Also here, the shape of this building. What a coincidence, the exact shape I once drew on OpenStreetMap appears in Flight Simulator. Is it again just the AI guessing it right? Look at just how specific the shape is.
I don’t think that’s fully correct. Blackshark AIs image detection is just one part of the formula.
Someone pointed out that there are references to OSM in the SDK. Then almost every building that has height or storey data available in OSM is present in MSFS with the correct height. Even those where someone has put in wrong information.
There are power line towers (even small poles) present in MSFS. They are hard to detect visually but are perfectly available in OSM.
Furthermore there are buidlings present in MSFS that are missing on BING areal imagery.
It might be that BING cooperates with OSM. Almost all buildings in BING maps have the same distinctive shape as present in OSM.
