An innocent Typo Led To a Giant 212-Story Obelisk in Microsoft Flight Simulator (theverge.com) 51
Kelerei writes: Microsoft Flight Simulator players spotted a giant mountain-high obelisk in Australia last month. While Flight Simulator has done a great job at recreating the real world, this unusually huge structure doesn't exist in real life. Players have now discovered that its existence stems from a simple typo. University student Nathan Wright made an edit to OpenStreetMap data for part of his degree work last year, adding more than two hundred stories to a building that's actually just two stories. Wright meant to type 2, but instead he typed 212 in the data section for floors. "I think it's so funny as it was the first time I was using OpenStreetMap," says Wright in an email to The Verge. "I was using it for a university task and had to add data for class. I didn't think I would have to see it again." His university work is now internet famous, especially with the Microsoft Flight Simulator community. The typo made its way into Microsoft's Bing Maps data, which Asobo Studio, the developers behind Microsoft Flight Simulator, uses to map out the world in the game. Flight Simulator uses Azure-powered procedural generation technology, combined with Bing Maps data, to recreate virtual buildings like this 212-story obelisk.
Saw that in the LGR review (Score:3)
Re:Saw that in the LGR review (Score:4, Informative)
Where the data is good, it's really good. I've checked some pretty remote places that I'm personally familiar with and the renderings are much better than I had expected, darn near photo realistic in some unexpected locations.
They've come a long way from the original "Flight" where it was barely better than CGI text and you always started at Megg's field in downtown Chicago. But they also have a lot more horsepower to render all this and an absolutely huge database of imagery and map data to render. I my view, this new simulator is well worth the purchase price, even given they don't yet fully support VR in any useable way.
I look forward to years of improvements to aircraft systems modeling, performance and even better flight dynamics at the edges of the flight envelop. I also look forward to a larger fleet of aircraft from third parties.
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Where the data is good, it's really good. I've checked some pretty remote places that I'm personally familiar with and the renderings are much better than I had expected, darn near photo realistic in some unexpected locations.
They've come a long way from the original "Flight" where it was barely better than CGI text and you always started at Megg's field in downtown Chicago. But they also have a lot more horsepower to render all this and an absolutely huge database of imagery and map data to render. I my view, this new simulator is well worth the purchase price, even given they don't yet fully support VR in any useable way.
I look forward to years of improvements to aircraft systems modeling, performance and even better flight dynamics at the edges of the flight envelop. I also look forward to a larger fleet of aircraft from third parties.
From video I've seen, it's actually not too far off from the visuals of full size, commercial simulator visuals.
Re:Saw that in the LGR review (Score:5, Informative)
Commercial simulator visuals aren't generally very good because they aren't there to simulate long flights. They're there to simulate landings under adverse conditions, with crosswinds and broken rudders, etc.
They're also much more concerned about how accurate the runway lights are than if downtown Paris looks photorealistic.
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The game is available through MS's subscription for $1/month now so I gave it a shot just to see what's changed since the last one.
It's obviously night and day. That said as has been pointed out, the realism varies. Basically there are 341 cities [rockpapershotgun.com] which have proper 3d models (from bing street view or photogrammetry I assume), while the rest make do with OSM data and generic buildings. What I found is that for my city, which isn't on the lucky list, the overall city layout and buidlign locations and footprint
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] for that video. Got to provide the link!
Square on top. Not an obelisk. (Score:3)
That's no obelisk. It's a monolith.
But hey, it's 2020. Who had "Aliens turn Earth into a new sun" for September?
Are it's proportions precisely 1:4:9? (Score:1, Redundant)
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That movie came out literally fifty-two years ago.
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And it's still relevant even though the year has come and gone.
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The last time I ever saw it get referenced to tributed to was an episode of Futurama called Love and Rocket, I hear tribute to Also sprach Zarathustra but you can't always count that as a reference.
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Your point is what? I'm nearly fifty years old. I think I am capable of dealing with concepts that are a few years older than me.
My house has 1632 written on it and that is not its street number. It is one of the newer buildings in this village. To be fair, the thatch might have been replaced a few times and the cob patched up a bit.
Kids.
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That movie came out literally fifty-two years ago.
So did I. What's your point?
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It was supposed to be, but the alien's suction cups got stuck in the keyboard, giving us 1:4:99999999
Not actually an error (Score:1)
That is the Oldest House [fandom.com], Microsoft just accidentally included what is really there and has to try and cover it up now.
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Was it feature on This Old House?
Yes in the Manors of Eldritch Horror season. Sadly it's not been re-broadcast as too many people went insane after watching it or had... things... emerge from the TV set during... those that were not drawn into the TV forever that is.
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There's a landing video (Score:1)
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Licensing (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it okay that Microsoft is using OpenStreetMap data for profit?
If I were that guy, the obelisk would be much more phallic.
Yes, that's what "open" means. Not Free Trial Map (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, anytime you see the word "open" in the name of a project or a license, that generally means people are allowed to use it. If you are not allowed to use it, if it's heavily restricted, it'll typically be called something like "free trial" or "educational edition".
Open Street Map uses an attribution license similar to CC BY 4.0, which means when you use it in your product / project, you are supposed to acknowledge that. In other words, use it, don't plagiarize it. Just acknowledge who you're quoting. (Looking at you, Biden).
For some geographic areas, OSM also includes CC BY 4.0 stuff and other similar licenses for different places. So before using it, check out the licensing page for details.
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Is it okay that Microsoft is using OpenStreetMap data for profit?
If I were that guy, the obelisk would be much more phallic.
Not just okay - actually good. This story is an example. If Microsoft hadn't spent man-years building a flight simulator to display the OSM data then probably this bug in the data would have taken much longer to spot. Now it can easily be fixed. If this continues worldwide it can improve OSM's data considerably. Microsoft saves some amount of money - but probably not a huge amount - and gets better data than they would likely use otherwise. In return, everyone else who uses OSM gets better data too.
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Is it okay that Microsoft is using OpenStreetMap data for profit?
Why wouldn't it be? I'd wage most companies that use OSM data use it for profit. Is it okay that the Linux kernel gets used in systems for profit? If it weren't okay that would be reflected in the license.
What unit is a story? (Score:1)
In what universe do we put in "stories" in map heights? 2 stories is what, 4.2m at least, but typically 4.8, depending on the building?
The unit that humans can see (Score:2)
A person can drive by a building and see that it is a two-story building, or one story or 12, and out that in Open Street Map.
It's rather more difficult to measure how many meters each building is, and not more useful to know.
OpenStreetMap can we add meigs field back with it? (Score:2)
OpenStreetMap can we add meigs field back with it?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't exist in real life? (Score:5, Funny)
> this unusually huge structure doesn't exist in real life
Has anyone checked? We're a few years late for the monolith, but maybe nobody looked in Australia.
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An innocent Typo ... late for the monolith.
INNOCENT. Sure. Someone in the Illuminati who's actually SITTING in that object messed up and entered it in the public database.
Don't worry, he's been recalled to the mother ship for re-processing. (Read: Soylent Green -- Crunchier and Exactly the Same, yet -- Now More Better than Ever!)
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this unusually huge structure doesn't exist in real life
Has anyone checked? We're a few years late for the monolith, but maybe nobody looked in Australia.
It's hard to type numbers into OpenStreetMap when you're a koala. But yes, somebody checked. For small furry values of 'somebody'.
It's Trump Tower (Score:2)
...somebody had fantastically Yuuuuge plans.
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You've sparked an idea for wonderful game...
GIGO: No Error Checking? (Score:3)
Won't this notoriety only embolden Internet troublemakers to do more of the same?
And why wasn't this caught and stopped when the data was first entered?
Imagine no typos (Score:2)
This Is Spinal Tap (Score:2)
Too late (Score:2)
The UAE has already broken ground on its new 213 story hotel tower.
Yes, we know. (Score:2)
Almost two weeks ago, the rest of the world heard about this