Thread by @bellingcat

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 launched last week, giving players a 1:1 scale of the world in which to play.

And we explored how accurate this simulated Earth is to see if it could be useful for open source research!

bellingcat.com/resources/case…

The bad news: We found that while the game's AI-generated building models worked remarkably well, they're not accurate enough to aid in geolocation.

BUT — we also took a look at other features, like the game's ability to render topography.

On the topography front, the game performed much more impressively.

Flight Simulator 2020 is able to render beautiful vistas with life-like realism. We compared a couple of sites with Google Earth Pro to see the difference, including one in these images of Lake Louise, Alberta.

In Flight Simulator 2020, lighting conditions are determined by factors like weather and time of day, which the game allows you to manipulate on-the-go.

These features can help researchers get a "feel" for the places they're exploring remotely.

We also checked out how the game renders conflict zones and ecological disaster areas, and found different results.

For example, the game renders the now-destroyed Donetsk International Airport as fully operational, but the view it provides of a mine in Venezuela is grim.

What's truly exciting is that the game's use of a different set of technologies including satellite imagery, weather modeling, and AI modeling give us a clear view into what the future holds for realistic simulations of our planet.

Please check out the full article by @gianfiorella — which explores imagery of various conflict zones and even a terrifying shopping-mall-turned-prison

bellingcat.com/resources/case…