Will my OpenStreetMaps edits get into the sim?

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KSPB in Oregon is whacked out and runway/taxiway elevations are all over the place lol, which is fine. Decided to try and correct it.

I used OpenStreetMaps to make some corrections to runway and taxiway elevation, as well as taxiway alignment and building placements around the area. Elevation of runway was referenced from Skyvector. Does this need to go through some authentication process first before any of my edits are introduced into the sim?

Anyone who’s done this: How long did your edits take to get into the sim?

Cheers!

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If you made your own scenery you should be able to just whack it into the sim without any authentication. The game is made to be modded. If you’re unsure I would highly recommend reading the SDK documentation. I don’t know about it much myself but hope it helps.

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I’ve read that, too. Yeah I just edited OpenStreetMaps - didn’t make my own stuff. I’m not that skilled!

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you should maybe think about joining the official MSFS discord , go hang out in the SDK channel , lots of folks are learning and so could you

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Would you mind posting a link. I somehow managed to get into the alpha branch of the discord channel but never into the general one.

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Here ya go , https://discord.gg/R5MGTP

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The link is broken.

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If you go to the home page here and scroll down you will see links for all the things MSFS related, official stuff :slight_smile:

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Okay. As it seems to be the most appropriate of all the post concerning OpenStreetMap usage, I’d like to share and summarize what we know.

Autogen is definitely capable of utilizing OSM data, it’s confirmed by a funny cases like this.
But here are hard proofs in licencing/database notices:

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image1665×959 159 KB

and SDK tools in which we’re able to exclude OSM buildings or MS buildings:

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image1003×1113 1.24 MB

We know what specific tags are being used by the autogen, as @AlphaMutyoro shared info:

‘height’ tag is not work
‘building:part’ is seems like ignore
‘building:level’ is effecting
roof shape tag is not concerning.
SOURCE: Community Driven World Builder in SDK Discussion

However, OSM data in many regions seems to be outdated. Examples:

Many skyscrapers in Warsaw (Poland, EU) (which even got itself custom 3d model from Asobo team) have correct 3d models in OSM:

warsaw_OSMdata
warsaw_OSMdata2522×1737 3.8 MB

same view in MFS using OSM data (checked with DevTools to be sure) looks like this:

warsaw_OSMdata_MFS
warsaw_OSMdata_MFS1936×1200 3.05 MB

we can see many ignored buildings or interpreted in confusing way.

There’s also small neighbourhood near my home airport EPWR with OSM data which I updated, so it’s accurate:

smolec_OSMdata
smolec_OSMdata2400×1800 480 KB

same view in FS:

smolec_OSMdata_MFS.png
smolec_OSMdata_MFS.png2214×1200 3.34 MB

The last example has the right to be outdated, as I’ve submitted the changes like 3 days ago.

From that all it seems to me, that FS autogen is definitely not streaming OSM data directly from OSM, but probably relies on OSM data stored on FS servers. Because of that Warsaw example I bet either that OSM data is old, or it’s old AND further processed and misinterpreted by autogen algorithms.

It would be super nice to get official info from the Dev Team on how this process actually works, especially how frequent are the updates and will we be able to improve FS experience through updating OSM data without messing with publishing scenery packages.

quick update:
I’ve sent an email to FlightSimData@microsoft.com and :bird: tweeted a question :bird: regarding OSM data update frequency, and looking forward for them to reply so I can share the official info :wink:

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Regarding your inquiry: Any word back after two weeks? I’d love to be able to enhance areas I know with OSM data instead of individual scenery packages.

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Unfortunately, my mail and tweet was left with no reply.

Also, I’ve just checked the location that is mentioned in the last pic on my analysis post, and with any settings applied in Scenery Editor to exclude/include MS/OSM buildings (as well as in the “raw” game) not a single change to generated buildings is visible :disappointed:

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I do hope it’s updated periodically, although I’d expect the periodicity to relatively long - weeks to months. They clearly do some sort of post-processing so I wouldn’t expect it to be streaming. Is there a Zendesk issue on the topic I can vote for?

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Just created one: [Wishlist] Wrong autogen buildings and map data improvement idea

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I’m a little fuzzy on the correct positioning of buildings. I’ve noticed when using the aerials on OSM a lot of them are misaligned. This probably due to them being drawn on the basis of an older or different source. I wonder if the sim corrects for that somehow?

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Any updates on this?

I have tried to edit OSM in hopes it would be taken into the sim, but even when they did the World Update for the Nordics, they didn’t correct building heights that where way off in Oslo (capitol of Norway), and a lot of the tall buildings looked like ■■■■■■ 1 floor boxes even when they had height data on them in OSM.

They also put in stupid big old looking churches all over even where OSM clearly stated it was a flat roof small building. Looks like they just randomly placed out generic churches on spots that where registered as a church no matter what the building looked like. The scenery would become so much better if they could use the community to correct their own surroundings through OSM without needing to create custom add-ons.

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I have a favorite grass field I like to fly from. In reality there are some trees that make takeoff and landing more interesting. Following the SDK I was able to add these trees freely. Use the editor to create the file and then put the file in the correct directory. That’s all you need to do.

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Unfortunately, you’re not going to like the answer. OpenStreetMap data has never been updated since launch (see 30:18):

But it sounds like the intend to run an update in the future.

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I might have to test that out to see how hard it is to manipulate buildings. Was thinking they would need some 3D-model replacement, but maybe they also can just be “adjusted”.

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Thank you for the video. Unsure how I had missed that part.

Too bad they aren’t updating it frequently, but at least they have a plan to do it in the future, so if we continue to update OSM, the changes will get in there eventually :slight_smile:

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