Re-cutting base scenery/mesh

[starflight]

We all know there's serious shortcomings to the current shipping base scenery, like missing bodies of water and old OSM data. There's talk of "re-cutting" the scenery with more accurate data, and I'm sure new XP sales after that hypothetical re-cut will have the new scenery on the DVDs. I know this is very much putting the cart before the horse, but what might existing owners need to do to get the new scenery? Download (HUGE, even with torrents), get new DVDs (free or paid upgrade), etc?

[Colin S]

That would be a paine in the arse. I know that even the HD mesh for Hawaii right now makes parts of the coastline sink below sea level, I sure hope they recut it.

[Cameron]

I would guess that the recut will likely run anywhere from $15-20 via DVD only.

[chris k]

However, LR already has pushed "bug fixed" recut DSF tiles (check your /Global Scenery/Bug Fixes/ directory) in the past; to fix some glaring issues (Denver was underwater or on top of a mountain or something like that in the initial 10.00 release ..)

 

DSFs actually don't take up that much space per se; if LR restricts the "recut" to only areas that really need it the most... time will tell.

 

- CK.

[greggerm]

DSFs actually don't take up that much space per se; if LR restricts the "recut" to only areas that really need it the most... time will tell.

 

Unfortunately, that means nearly 100% of North America due to the water shortcomings in our area... and if they need suggestions as to where, I can tell them the regions I've added in hundreds if not thousands of square miles of water and smoothed out sawtooth ocean coastlines...

 

I know why they architected it the way they did, I understand the performance benefits it brings, but holy heck is it a royal pain in the pooper to have fresh OSM data sitting right there, with no way for us to get it into X-Plane 10. This is one of those topics that gets my blood boiling (*irrationally, I will admit).

 

I wonder if a diff/delta-based patching engine would be better for X-Plane updates instead of straight file replacements? That way, 90% or more of the data on our systems today would remain, and only the changes would need to be sent down, processed, and new files created as a result. That would VASTLY reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to support global scenery updates... if the file structure was amenable towards it, of course.

 

Even better would be a push-button method for us end-users to do it all ourselves, but that's about as likely as Microsoft developing MSFS 2014.... but wouldn't it be nice? "I just added a new neighborhood into OSM which wasn't there before... clicked a few buttons, and voila... I have a new DSF reflecting this change."

 

Anyway - here's to hoping a global scenery recut is forthcoming, and soon. The X-Plane scenery architecture doesn't allow for 3rd parties to get in there and easily do wholesale replacements, so we're at the mercy of Laminar for the work to get done.

 

-Greg

[starflight]

SFs actually don't take up that much space per se; if LR restricts the "recut" to only areas that really need it the most... time will tell.

 

What or who would define "need it the most" though (hypothetically of course)? My home region (Ottawa, Canada) is missing pretty much the entire Ottawa river. Someone put out a draped polygon fix but it's a glaring omission out of the box.

[chris k]

Need the most = large population centres where people are most likely to be flying. And/or notice it more being familiar with the immediate area.

I have no idea what Sydney looks like 80 km to the west. . But I know precisely what downtown looks like