Hi John,
Will it be a reality at some stage for Prepar3d to interact with Google Earth and provide a world wide scenery that leaves FSX for dead?
Thank you,
Tom Kennedy
Google Earth
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Legacy Support
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Hi John,
Mike Pohl here, owner of ACES Flight Simulation in Minnesota. We've been doing some work with Jason and Martile on geometric correction for Prepar3d. An acquaintance of mine from New Zealand has a beta of Google Earth "plumbed" into FSX. I have yet to get it to work properly, but it is very intriguing.
http://www.planetinaction.com/gevision/gevision.htm
Mike Pohl here, owner of ACES Flight Simulation in Minnesota. We've been doing some work with Jason and Martile on geometric correction for Prepar3d. An acquaintance of mine from New Zealand has a beta of Google Earth "plumbed" into FSX. I have yet to get it to work properly, but it is very intriguing.
http://www.planetinaction.com/gevision/gevision.htm
Hey All,
TileProxy (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tileproxy/) has been doing something like that for FSX for quite some time, although they were asked, by Google, to remove the ability to connect to the google servers about 2 years ago (I think they still work with VirtualEarth/Bing and maybe Open Street Maps, plus any other standard map tile server).
There are some problems with this sort of thing though, adjoining tiles aren't color corrected with each other, so you see color changes at the tile breaks; the images are taken at different times of the day/year, so the shadows don't match; the images don't have multiple seasons, so you don't get scenery that looks correct for the date you are flying, you just get whatever images that area has; no nighttime textures, so no night lighting; and at least in the way TileProxy does things, you lose all the autogenerated trees and buildings.
Tim
TileProxy (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tileproxy/) has been doing something like that for FSX for quite some time, although they were asked, by Google, to remove the ability to connect to the google servers about 2 years ago (I think they still work with VirtualEarth/Bing and maybe Open Street Maps, plus any other standard map tile server).
There are some problems with this sort of thing though, adjoining tiles aren't color corrected with each other, so you see color changes at the tile breaks; the images are taken at different times of the day/year, so the shadows don't match; the images don't have multiple seasons, so you don't get scenery that looks correct for the date you are flying, you just get whatever images that area has; no nighttime textures, so no night lighting; and at least in the way TileProxy does things, you lose all the autogenerated trees and buildings.
Tim
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fsdreamscapes
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The other issues with TileProxy are that they break the EULA for the map servers and contravenes the agreement that companies like Digital Globe have with these online map services. They're exclusive contracts with the map services and the EULA's for them specifically state that they are only to be accessed via offical API's of which TileProxy does not, they circumvent the API's to get access to the imagery. The question is not can it be done, it can be, the question is of legality, contractual obligations and on the integrity of the software developer.
The whole reason I started terrain development were because of the issues outlined above. As Tim mentioned there's also problems with TileProxy technology. Lack of water coverage, color inconsistencies, poor load times, image blurring, no autogen, etc etc etc.
As for streaming terrain, there's technology out that could replace the core terrain system that was developed for FSX and replace it with one that is procedural and global. Such technology exists that goes far beyond what TileProxy could accomplish.
The whole reason I started terrain development were because of the issues outlined above. As Tim mentioned there's also problems with TileProxy technology. Lack of water coverage, color inconsistencies, poor load times, image blurring, no autogen, etc etc etc.
As for streaming terrain, there's technology out that could replace the core terrain system that was developed for FSX and replace it with one that is procedural and global. Such technology exists that goes far beyond what TileProxy could accomplish.
