Just wanted to suggest and see what kind of interest there might be…
Having HD ground textures on a global scale can be a daunting task and even push devices to their extremes. But I was wondering if it was possible to high definition ground textures only around airports? This is something Airport Editors can do while editing airports. They could possibly have a tool to mark out an area around an airport where high definition ground textures will appear?
The idea came to me while I was watching videos on YouTube where people were creating airports for MSFS2020 and they had a tool to draw a boundary where the ground texture would apply within that boundary in high definition.
PS: This is just a suggestion that came to mind after seeing an airport editing video for MSFS2020. Please don’t start the baseless MSFS vs. IFS comments, I know the difference. I’m just pitching an idea and I’m not asking for MSFS level of quality on a mobile/tab based game.
The idea is nice, but there’s a big difference between IF and MSFS
MSFS is of course ultimately owned by Microsoft, who also own Bing.
So by default, MSFS is able to use Bing satellite imagery in its simulator with no legal or copyright issues, cos it’s all ultimately owned by the same people.
IF has no sort of backing like that.
Infinite Flight (the company) would need to pay Microsoft (or Google or Apple) for a licence to use HD satellite imagery in the simulator, and given the fact that IF covers the entire world, that’s gonna be an expensive prospect.
It’s also partially why we still see the limited terrain coverage in-game (the flat scenery above 20 degrees North and below 20 degrees South) because getting a replacement for that relatively cheap data is incredibly expensive.
That’s even before we begin to think about the technical issues around implementing it, requiring huge data downloads to already storage limited mobile devices.
I was very curious about how expensive this would be, since we’d obviously all love to have that. Well I don’t know anything about this kinda stuff, so I just asked ChatGPT and..-
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if they did it like that and licensed imagery for some of the popular areas. Because if that price range is accurate, that’s just insane.
ChatGPT doesn’t know about specific costs either. It mentions no numbers because that sort of thing isn’t really discussed publicly, rather privately between a sales team and potential purchasers, and varies on a case-by-case basis.
What works in a desktop PC flight sim will not work in a mobile platform flight sim with regards to APIs etc.
I know for a fact that many IFAET editors have issues with loading full HD satellite imagery on their mobile devices right now, and that’s for a relatively small selection of imagery covering an airport, never mind an entire region.
The technology simply isn’t there yet for mobile devices to be displaying MSFS level HD imagery on the ground.
No one compared MSFS to IFS. I’m only pitching an idea based on what I saw in an airport editing video from MSFS2020. IFS satellite imagery is poor. Even RFS now has better satellite imagery.
I’m aware that the costs involved are high that’s why I’m suggesting a smaller sample I.e. only around airports and not the entire world.
There’s also multiple sources for satellite imagery.
and..-