VFR Volume 2 Central & Southern England
This Central
and Southern region package starts at the south coast of England and
extends north to a line at N53º14.4´ running east-west just north of Chester.
The eastern boundary is along a line at W0º40.2´ running north-south from
Sandsend (just west of Whitby, North Yorks) to Bognor Regis. The western
boundary is along a line at W3º18.6´ from the mouth of the River Dee to the
Estuary of the River Otter, east of Budleigh Salterton. Booker, Sywell, Farnborough, White Waltham, Goodwood,
Halton AB, Hawarden, Merryfield Navy
The development of the photographic scenery project is a collaboration between getmapping PLC and Visual Flight to develop add-on scenery for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 using the first ever complete and continuous seamless aerial photographic image of the UK - The Millennium Map from getmapping PLC. The photographic scenery is made by draping high quality aerial photography over a 3D model of the terrain so that it can be used by Microsoft Flight Simulator to display it as it might be seen from a plane in real-life. The photographic scenery recreates VFR (Visual Flight Rules) flying in which navigation is by linear features such as motorways and railways, and reporting points are based on prominent visual features in the landscape. It also allows flight simulator pilots to fly sightseeing trips just for the sheer enjoyment and beauty of the countryside, as well as exploring areas they may be familiar with including birthplaces, work and holiday locations as well as their home area! FREE BONUS improved terrain mesh data is included to further enhance your cross-country flights with more detail to hills, mountains and valleys!
'Photorealistic' quality refers to the technique of using samples of photographic textures to represent the landscape over a wide area. For example a single photograph of a set of fields may be used to display fields in many different locations in a flight simulator. However, photographic scenery, as included here, uses the actual photograph of each location to display the scenery at that location in the flight simulator. The biggest difference is that all visible features in the real-world landscape are displayed in their true location in the flight simulator! Does this scenery upgrade include my town or village, or just the major cities? This photographic scenery shows not just every major city, but also every town, village, hamlet, wood, field, copse, stream, river, road, railway, canal, shopping centre, factory, in fact every visible feature in between, right down to individual streets and houses! Obviously given the detail, the overall coverage would extend to over 7 GB of scenery data - that is why the scenery is being offered for sale in individual geographic 'volumes', each containing 3 CDs. For details of the exact coverage in this volume see the section below. Will airport scenery be included? Yes, the photographic scenery by its nature contains every airport, airfield, farm strip, heliport, etc. in England & Wales (or to be precise, all those in existence at the time of the aerial survey). This includes all the airfields not included in FS2002, and includes all the WWII airfields no longer in use but which are still visible from the air. However, the photographic scenery doesn't contain any 3D airport buildings of the type typically available as 'add-on scenery'. What will the detail be like in my area? The level of detail will be the same in all areas, from the largest cities to the most remote communities. You can get an idea what sort of detail and quality to expect by looking at the screenshots. Is the photographic scenery based on satellite images? No. The photographic scenery uses getmapping's Millennium Map™ aerial photography which is based on images shot from aircraft flying at around 5,000ft. The resulting photographic quality and seamless coverage cannot currently be matched by satellite imagery. You can find out more about the GetMapping photography at www.getmapping.com. What's the best height to view the scenery? The scenery has been designed with typical VFR flying in mind. That means you will get the best from the photographic scenery, flying in a light aircraft at a height of 2,000ft or more. Will frame rates be affected? Each PC system and Flight Simulator 2002 set-up will naturally vary from others, but our general tests show no major deterioration in frame rates. The photographic scenery is actually easier for FS2002 to render than other types of scenery. Will it be compatible with add-on airport scenery? The photographic scenery should be compatible with high quality add-on airport scenery from commercial and freeware producers, as it provides only a base layer, not 3D objects. Will it be compatible with Autogen scenery? Yes, although by default you will not see any Autogen scenery in the photographic scenery areas. Autogen scenery (e.g. based on land classification data) would destroy the reality of the photographic scenery by inappropriately placing buildings and trees in areas on the photographic image where no buildings and trees exist in real life. For this reason, the default Autogen scenery is effectively disabled in the areas covered by the photographic scenery. Autogen scenery can be added to the photographic scenery using the FS2002 Autogen SDK. What about seasonal variations? The aerial photography used in the scenery was shot at various times of year from spring through to autumn. getmapping have used their image processing skills and techniques to make a complete, seamless image suitable for use in Flight Simulator, but it is not possible for practical reasons to produce separate seasonal variations. If we did this, the data would be four times the size of the existing scenery, i.e. approx 26-28 GB. The same photographic scenery will be displayed during all seasons within FS2002, and though the differences in light levels may alter the appearance to a certain extent, this will not fully represent the seasonal variations seen in real life. Likewise it is not currently possible to include a separate night-time variation of the scenery (producing accurate night-time textures would double the overall size of data to 13-14 GB). For the moment, the photographic scenery will usable from dawn to dusk, but after dark the best results will be obtained by turning the photographic scenery off. Developed by: Visual Flight and Getmapping PLC
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Standard Edition or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Professional Edition Minimum Hardware Requirements: Multimedia PC with Pentium III 700 MHz (equivalent or higher) processor. Graphics card with 16MB (or higher) video memory, 3D hardware acceleration and DirectX 8.0A compatible drivers. Operating System: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (as supported by MSFS2002). 64MB RAM (128MB for Windows 2000 and Windows XP). Super VGA monitor supporting 800x600 resolution/16-bit colour (or better) DirectX8.0A (or later). Approximately 650MB free space on hard disk. Recommended Hardware Requirements: Multimedia PC with Pentium III 1GHz (equivalent or higher) processor. Graphics card with 32 MB (or higher) video memory, 3D hardware acceleration and DirectX 8.0A compatible drivers. Operating System: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (as supported by MSFS2002). 128MB RAM. Super VGA monitor supporting 800x600 resolution/16-bit colour (or better) DirectX8.0A (or later). Approximately 1.8GB free space per to install to hard disk for optimal performance. |
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