On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:20:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

You haven't used MSFS recently have you? Satellite imagery ground has
been a feature of MSFS since about 1998 or 2000.

Actually that's not quite true. Digital ELEVATION data, possibly
acquired by satellites, forms the terrain mesh of FS200*. The IMAGERY
mapped over that elevation data is mostly comprised of bitmaps that are
driven by USGS "land class" data (i.e. "where are the trees, where is
the water, where are the verdant pastures of green"), not actual
photo-imagery.

In FS2004 there are exceptions to this - a few areas have satellite
image-based areas - but the vast majority of the world's terrain is land
class-based.

There are many add-ons to FS that *are* based on aerial imagery - I'm
waiting on the one for Northern California to be released by
www.megascenery.com for instance.

BTW I've used the www.keyhole.com stuff, courtesy of a 30-day free
license that I got with an NVidia graphics card. It is really an amazing
application, and worth the bucks in my opinion. I haven't signed up yet
for the $ version but I probably will at some point.

---

On a related note, that may provide a similar function for folks, I've
been playing around with "ExpertGPS" (www.expertgps.com). It's a
shareware product ($59 after 30 days of free use) that lets you do a
number of things with topo maps and (b&w) aerial photos, typically in
association with a GPS receiver. For instance, I just bought this really
cool Garmin "ForeTrex" palm-size GPS unit that has a PC interface, that
I bought for biking and geocaching (www.geocaching.com). I can download
a "track" that I've traveled with the GPS and it will map that to
web-based topo and aerial photo data and then download those "tiles" for
viewing. You can also digitize a scanned sectional or other aeronautical
map and do similar things - *or* plot out a flight in the application
and then download the route into your handheld.

It's a little hard to describe in text but the download and first 30
days is free and I have been having a blast with it over the last few
days.

(Scanned sectionals are available for free download from a number of
places, e.g. www.avsim.com. But - they are not current if that's
important to you.)

Dave Blevins