Dear all,
I accidentally turned off the photogrammetry in Online setting, I notice the whole London City builds look so clear, sharp, proper geometry shape but less realistic… just a little bit (I’m ok with that). But why? can anyone advise…? Many Thanks
Hi,
Before I or anyone else answers, I want to ask if you know what photogrammetry is or how it’s created.
I want to know
Okay, perfect!
Photogrammetry is basically 3D pictures. Photos are taken from an aircraft flying several thousand feet in the air. (I saw a plane doing an aerial survey over my place and they flew at about 6000 ft.) They get reassembled into 3D afterwards.
Here’s a plane doing an aerial survey over the city of Cleveland:
While it’s great for accuracy, it is taken from quite a distance away, so you will never* have the fidelity you would have by taking a photo of a building across the street. Another problem with photogrammetry is that it doesn’t distinguish between glass and other materials and reflect light accordingly. Photogrammetry is best viewed from high up.
In areas where you don’t have photogrammetry, or if you turn it off, Flight Simulator has a second set of data, called procedurally-generated buildings. These buildings are cut to follow approximately the same footprint and height as what you see in Bing Maps and another mapping application called OpenStreetMap. A supercomputer has a catalog of 3D building model templates to choose from, and it’s doing this all over the world. It takes days for the supercomputer to generate the whole world.
The buildings are not accurate because nobody has looked at each building and made a custom model for it. Very recognizable buildings like the Shard and the Gherkin will look really off without photogrammetry, unless someone goes in there and makes a specific 3D model for it.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
* Well, maybe not never. Some day, artificial intelligence may be able to clean it up better.
Thank you very much for sharing
Side note, I hope that Cleveland scan data makes it to the sim someday - current PG of NE Ohio is nearly 10 years old.
Moved to User Support Hub > Scenery & Airports as the OP was requesting community assistance for a general question about photogrammetry.
These buildings, and other London landmarks, have been hand crafted/modelled so they look very good without photogrammetry. Actually, they look a lot better than surrounding buildings generated by photogrammetry.
Oh yeah, here’s a fun thing I did with the Gherkin. You can see it as a procedural building, photogrammetry, and handcrafted model:
No photogrammetry:
Photogrammetry:
Handcrafted:
Maybe for a future city update! That is a Vexcel plane in that Cleveland screenshot.
However, just to set expectations, the plane that flew over me a few years ago was also a Vexcel plane, and the imagery in the sim hasn’t been updated in a long time. I think you can find cave paintings in the photogrammetry!
