John Venema Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Hello everyone, As we continue to develop TrueEarth (TE) regions apace, we are coming to the conclusion that 200GB+ products are perhaps a bridge too far for some of our customers, and this is creating a reluctance to invest in such product despite how beautiful they may look. We realise that even though the cost of HDDs and SSDs is dropping all the time, some folks simply don't want to end up with 16TB+ of large TE addons cramming their PCs. So the development team have been putting our thinking caps on about how to create TE regions that still look great, but are far smaller in size. The answer we arrived at is surprisingly simple. We plan to update TE USA Washington and keep the ZL17 imagery in key places such as Seattle, the northern Olympics, Lower Vancouver Island and all the major cities. Basically where you will spend 95% of your time. Everything else in the state is either dense forest covered in trees, or arid flatlands and farmlands. Those areas can be shown at ZL16 with an unsharpen mask and our tests show you will be hard pressed to tell the difference. Below is an example of some areas in ZL17 (large) versus ZL16 (smaller) with unsharpen mask. Desert LZ17 Desert LZ16 Plains LZ17 Plains LZ16 Forest LZ17 Forest LZ16 Urban LZ17 Urban LZ16 As you can see the difference (if any) is negligible, and for the most part, these titles are covered in autogen anyway, and away from core airport operations. The big difference? Well the product will be reduced in size by up to 75% or more, but still offer the same visual fidelity. This means the download will be closer to 10-15GB and the HDD/SSD footprint closer to 50-60GB. That is a massive reduction from 210GB currently. We intend to release Oregon using this system, and also update Washington in the same manner. I wanted to start an open a discussion with customers about this approach and see if this will influence decision making about making further investments in large TE regions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Museumkeeper Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I am used to using X-Plane and have amassed almost 6TB of ortho images so purchasing TE GB and Washington were never going to be a problem however I have experienced a shortage of disk space in the past and together with at that time very slow wi-fi, I can fully understand Orbx taking this measure. I can also vouch for the difference between zl16 and zl17 being so small that very few people will notice. Well d0ne once more Qrbx for listening to your customers with particular regards to lack of disk space and download times. Kind regards Ian S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W2DR Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Great news John. I have said many times that I won't be buying any more TE because of the size. You just changed everything! Now I'll buy everything you make. Thank you, thank you, thank you.........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BradB Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Works for me , these old tired eyes can't see any difference in the comparison shots . Cheers John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john548 Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Nicely done John. Cannot see any difference but to my eyes the Z16 look a lot sharper. So yes! although I have enough SSD space for quite a while yet, this is good news because I will have even more space. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I'm in!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCFlyer Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I like the approach. I don't fly X-plane, so, I don't at present have much TE software. I do look forward to release of TE Washington and Oregon, etc., for P3D. Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Sibbritt Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 The ZL16 diffinitely is a sharper & better image. Why not use that resolution for everything & save even more space ? Kim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregmorin Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Good idea John! I will re-consider the TE products now. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wroblewski Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 8 minutes ago, Sibbritt said: Why not use that resolution for everything & save even more space ? There is a sharpening filter applied to the ZL16, and not to the ZL17. In effect, it's made the ZL16 look sharper than the ZL17 until you zoom right in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerTigerM Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 A Win/Win as far as I am concerned - I will buy more XP TE product for the freed up space, thereby increasing the range & nature of the flights I can take, & Orbx gets to sell more product. TTM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dadtom65 Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Looking great and yes anything to save space and the downloading. Works for me. Plus because of the rethink does that mean we might be getting area’s a bit quicker. . Derek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Clarke Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I think it makes a lot of commercial sense as it is proving via some of the above posts to have potentially increased the sales. I would only add, that there has been comment regarding the current ZL17 imagery as looking less defined than it should due to the "compression" and in contrast to ZL17 in Ortho4XP imagery. I, for one, have 90% of western Europe in Orth4xp at ZL16 and it looks fine to me, so TE in ZL16 +ZL17 in some areas is of no concern regarding quality. As JV states most of the urban, cities and towns will be covered in autogen/objects, so the definition of the ground imagery is really superfluous. If the ZL16 imagery has the sharpening filter applied throughout, then the image quality will look superior to ortho4xp (without sharpening filter) Are the pics provided above, one's that have been compressed and then decompressed, i.e. a version of what we the customer would see? I am all for the new idea and look forward to trying them out. Will the customers of the existing version(s) be paying for the alternative version or would it be classified as an optional update/SP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F737MAX Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Three things: It would be nice to have the screenshots expand to the same size to compare. Currently, when enlarging the pictures, ZL17 zooms in further than the ZL16 images, so it's very difficult to make a valid comparison of fidelity. At what altitude were these shots taken? VFR is usually from 1,500 feet, with most flying at around 2 - 3,000. These shots seem higher. The size reduction will be very welcome for most people. Other than cities, popular landmark items such as specific mountains (e.g. Mt Hood or Mt Rainier), glaciers, cliff faces, mines, or bays and estuaries, should receive the higher ZL detail. My three cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc_Z Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Would this same kind of reduction apply to the P3d releases as well, when they eventually come along? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dadtom65 Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 18 minutes ago, Dadtom65 said: Looking great and yes anything to save space and the downloading. Works for me. Plus because of the rethink does that mean we might be getting area’s a bit quicker. . Derek. Dam that was quick just got the nod three more airports available for download . . Derek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breeze Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Can we see some low altitude VFR comparison shots? I'm sure you will notice the difference. I usually fly rural and mountain areas rather than cities so I'm more concerned about the quality around small towns, farms, lakes and small airports. I'm not concerned with disk space but I understand commercially you need to cater to those that do. I want the best visual quality possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobT Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Interesting.... but like Breeze I would like to see some low level shots with the autogen in play. I love the rural areas and flying low over them is more convincing than flying over urban areas at low level because of the resolution. Even at ZL 17 the resolution doesn't look so good when you are down low. What about applying the sharpening filter to the ZL 17 images...what would that look like? To me resolution is much more important than file size...up to a limit of course. Could Orbx offer a solution that could be either large file size (ZL 17 with sharpening?) or a smaller ZL16/17. Really, the only thing missing in TE is low level resolution of the orthos, but fortunately the accurate and dense overlays make up for it, mostly. I believe that looking forward...the highest possible resolution, not necessarily file size, is what simmers will be looking for. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 LOL. You cannot have high resolution imagery and keep the file sizes down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie_2 Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Honestly, I can't tell just from the pictures above. Definitely need to check it out in my simulator. Maybe you can do a test run for one GB region and Washington? BUT indeed, the 210 Gigabytes of TrueEarth Washington really have stopped me from purchasing this one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobT Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 9 minutes ago, John Venema said: LOL. You cannot have high resolution imagery and keep the file sizes down But that is exactly my point! ZL 16 will keep the file sizes down of course but that is why I would love to see how it looks at 1000 ft out of the cockpit. Personally, if it was offered as an option, I would pay more for higher resolution areas. The TE regions are a real value as is, so why not expand on that? I seem to remember it being mentioned months ago that for example a hi res version of Seattle might happen, etc. Is that out the window? Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 We’re doing some testing with Oregon now and will post some before/after shots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettT Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 John, That has always been my biggest knock against the TE series. They are beautiful but have a huge footprint. I had purchased TE Netherlands and liked it but it was a relatively small TE region. When Washington came out, I used that as an opportunity to get XP11 though with the size of Washington being 200GB I had pretty much committed to limiting my XP and TE footprint to Washington only. With this new approach I will likely pick up the other TE regions if they follow the same approach. Two quick questions: 1) What altitude are these samples taken at? 2) If successful do you intend to apply the same approach to the GB regions? Thanks, Brett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCFlyer Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I fly helicopters, therefore, I am low and slow. I have no problem with scenery size if the resolution/detail is high. I understand that my type of simming is not in the majority. Scenery that looks good at 2000 ft or less is what I am interested in and willing to accept whatever size that may come in. Storage prices are inexpensive at this point. Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breeze Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I will gladly pay extra for higher resolution ortho. Any chance for a split release, one high definition one not? Like the HD Washington enhancement pack only include HD ortho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucevan Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Disc space is becoming an issue for me so I was reluctant to get Washington, but a 60GB version sounds good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Ray Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 As long as it looks good in VFR - that's what I care about. Heck, that's why I love the TE series. Thanks for the hard work. I appreciate it. My wallet and wife, maybe not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gvainio Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 The large size was the only reason I haven’t purchased more than 1 TE version so far. I support this 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nosferatu Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 5 hours ago, Breeze said: I will gladly pay extra for higher resolution ortho. Any chance for a split release, one high definition one not? Like the HD Washington enhancement pack only include HD ortho. Me too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Ash Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 While I can agree with the reasoning of this decision, I fear this will make approaching airports in those ZL16 areas a bit of an eye-soar. I often do IFR ops with props - mainly the King Air - around the regions. To me ZL17 is just good enough for the ground to still look fine when approaching and landing at an airport. When I previously had some ZL16 orthos, I thought it was ok at 2000ft, but below it was too blurry and an eye-soar which took away the realism photoreal scenery is supposed to bring. If you're doing IFR ops with tubeliners it will be perfectly fine of course due to your high cruise altitude and higher speed approach. But IFRing in a single/dual prop on approach at <100kts, it's not a great look from my experience. As others have said, it would be good to see some screenshots from an altitude of about 1500ft AGL. Also, would this quality and size reduction equate to a small reduction in the price tag? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Ray Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 I'm not updating my current installation until I get confirmation that at low altitudes it looks the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvdboomen Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Has ORBX tried this LZ16 with no or very low USM? I find the sharpened images too jaggy and restless compared to the original. I also see this in TE GBS in P3D. That's why I like TE NL where the hard lines seem to be smoother. I don't know how to explain this in good English but I hope I'm clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Clarke Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 @Tony Wroblewski Regarding the proposed new ZL levels, and the subsequent smaller download size and HDD imprint of the installed addon, I want to know if the Orbx method of "compression" ( to reduce the download size) can be reviewed. I am no techy but read a lot about loss of resolution/definition/fidelity ( unsure of the correct terminology!) resulting from compressed Jpegs which are then uncompressed and then converted to dds format. Considering that I believe most people don't have too much of a problem on the downloading side of things, but may well have a problem with the final HDD imprint (which is what this new method is all about) then would it be possible to forgo the compression aspect if it does indeed result in less fidelity at the point of final image? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wroblewski Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 2 hours ago, jjaycee1 said: I want to know if the Orbx method of "compression" ( to reduce the download size) can be reviewed If the file sizes are smaller then it becomes less relevant to have the conversion stage, this is why we are reviewing the process and what people would like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaab Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Very interesting approach. I am in favour of this decrease of size, specially if it allows to get seasonal textures in Prepar3D. I can't imagine Washington area without seasons Gérard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manu1985 Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Hello, That's true, Washington is very heavy on hard drive, but it gives an incredible VFR experience, same as TE GB, I wonder if it would be possible to let the choice to the customer between two version : the z16 and z17? (Asking that, I suppose this is commercially complicated because I guess you would have to pay twice for the Orthos?) At least, will that be possible to keep that choice open for TE Washington wich was released with zoom 17 imagery? I'm getting used to it, and I fly almost only VFR, that would be kind of disappointing to see the quality decreasing in a next update without having the choice... If you are flying a liner, it wouldn't make a big difference, but between 1500 to 2000 ft... Best M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Like others said, I'd like a comparison shot from in the simulator. I've built plenty of Ortho tiles outside of TE regions and from my experience, ZL17 does make a huge difference in visual quality as opposed to ZL16 when flying (VFR) at lower altitudes (that + the POI's is why I chose for TE Washington). Yes, the size of the region is big, but it's (in my opinion) worth the space. Also, the comparison in the OP is unfair, as the forum resizes the images to 750x750... For a good comparison, open the images in a new tab and zoom in. Edit: if the aim is to make TE future proof (like you guys did by adding an optional HD pack) then I'd for sure stay at ZL17. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yanlaoge Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 It would please everybody if ORBX could give us two options to choose: HD version of max redolution and standard version with less resolution. I'd choose quality and I have no problem with installation size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulk Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 My opinion and it's only an opinion, I fly low and slow and it's the detail I want between 1000-4000ft. Currently the detail is great but I wouldn't want it to be lowered. For years we've had low resolution images which blur at low altitude and the details gone. Yes the TE scenery is large, but that's the price you pay for what I believe is perfection. However, I would be happy to view the demo that JV has talked about first prior to making a final opinion. One question I would like to ask JV is, you talked about lowering the TE Washington resolution in a future update. Will this be optional as I would personally like to keep my current version and not have the resolution of it lowered by an update. Finally, sales of products and profits of Orbx are none of my business. I personally hope they sell loads and make lots of money the company and staff deserve it for all their efforts. But, if it is a case of profits or reduced sales, would it be possible to offer a Low and High Resolution Version of each TE Scenery, possibly with a price difference ( although, currently I believe TE GB and Washington are priced correctly for what you get). Or would making two products within one be too costly. My above comments I hope will be received in a positive and constructive light with the best intentions that I have tried to put them in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmb Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 I would also vote for the two-resolution options model if it's viable. Personally, I'm with Paul and others, and would rather stay with present resolution which I find is a good compromise. If I'll need a larger drive I'll buy one. In addition I have an uncapped speedy DSL connection. I'm a pure VFR pilot and for me it's quality first. However, I've read from quite a number of users on this and others forums who don't buy TE sceneries just because of the sheer (download and installation) size and I can understand them, too. So this would give them an option, if this sharpen process really works. Kind regards, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.