In France, the National Institute of Geographic will start to opensource his data the 1st january 2021.
They have incredibly good aerial imagery (up to 20cm) and elevation data (up to 20cm).
Does Microsoft and Asobo plan to use this data in order to upgrade the data of France in Flight Simulator?
The data will be published under Open Licence Etalab 2.0 which permit the use of this data for worldwide commercial use.
They have confirmed on Twitter that the most precise aerial imagery and elevation data will be included as open data.
Premières données disponibles seront la BDTOPO BDORTHO et pyramide PlanIGN. D'autres données seront progressivement disponibles (télégt, flux). Les données incluant des droits de tiers ou protégées par le droit d’auteur (cartes & SCANs) ne sont pas concernées par cette ouverture.
— IGN France (@IGNFrance) December 11, 2020
Au 1er janvier, les #donnéespubliques de l’#IGN seront accessibles gratuitement en #LicenceOuverte Etalab 2.0! Parmi ces données: BD TOPO® BD ORTHO® BD forêt® RGE®Alti. Un accès qui favorise l’usage des #géodonnées et l'#innovation; participe à la relance de l’économie! #OpenData
— (@IGNpresse) December 12, 2020
Tout à fait, toutes les résolutions. Et conformément au Contrat d’Objectifs et de Performance entre l’État et l’#IGN, la BD Ortho est systématiquement HR.
— IGN France (@IGNFrance) December 11, 2020
Fier d'annoncer qu'au 1er janvier 2021, toutes les #DonnéesPubliques de l'@IGNFrance seront libres et accessibles gratuitement en #LicenceOuverte Etalab 2.0 !#OpenData
My guess is Asobo are well aware of this and it features in their forward plans.
But translating the data into the sim isn’t an overnight task, even with their (hopefully) now well-developed computer programmes. Every inch has to be scrutinised before they’ll distribute it.
As far as I can see it’s not yet on the “roadmap” so I’d anticipate it will be at least Summer 2021 - even if Asobo is French!
From my experience, elevation mesh is already very accurate in France, much more than in Switzerland, Italy or Spain (fly over the Pyrénées through the Spanish boundary, you’ll notice the difference). I felt lucky to enjoy a good accuracy in my favourite Alps areas while our Swiss neighbours complained for not even being served with a proper Matterhorn.
Regarding aerial imagery, Asobo uses the Bing data, so hopefully Bing will use IGN images soon (It doesn’t seem that IGN is a source for Bing maps yet).
World Update France has been confirmed in today Live Developer Q&A on Twitch.
It will be released in the end of march.
They have confirmed that “really high resolution Digital Elevation Models” will be used. The origin of the data has not been confirmed.
Given they wouldn’t even think about release World Update UK without London Photogrammetry, let’s hope they won’t even think about releasing France without Paris et la petite couronne (at least) the same way!
Hi there,
I moved this to Resolved Bugs, as Asobo recently released World Update 4: France/Benelux. Although I am not sure if they used this data set or not, a decision has been taken on which data set(s) to use with their world update.