minnesota missing landmarks

anyone done any of the missing landmarks in Minnesota yet? US Bank Stadium is still a hole in the ground

Bing maps/scenery is several years old. In milwaukee, the zoo interchange is at least 5 years old. It looks much, much different today. At least you have a hole in the ground. But look at the bright side - the sim probably still has Police in Minneapolis :)

From what I noticed while flying in my area around Philadelphia PA, the Bing maps data that they are using seems to be from around 2015. I noticed that the Movie Tavern movie theater near my brother's house in Exton is still under construction in the simulator. The Movie Tavern opened in late 2015 so the imagery that they are using must be from sometime shortly before then. I have to say though that the Photogrammetry scenery that they are using is really amazing though even if it is a few years old. The Philadelphia area is much better than what it was in previous versions and the simulator really is great for low level VFR flying in the general aviation aircraft. Flying the jets and airliners at high altitude and using the ATC system could really use some improvement though so I hope that those will be fixed sometime soon. It was much easier to fly the airliners in FSX. It is also nice to finally have the stadiums in south Philadelphia back in the game as well. The stadiums have been missing since FS2002, Microsoft never replaced Veterans Stadium when it was demolished in 2003 with either Lincoln Financial Field or Citizens Bank Park which replaced it. If you live in Philadelphia you love your sports teams so it was really great to see the entire sports complex back in the game in high definition. Especially since the stadiums are practically right under the approach path for Philadelphia International Airport's runways 27L and 27R so it was noticeable that they were not there. Not that I want to be advertising another site over flightsim.com but have you checked out the site http://www.flightsim.to ? They have been adding a lot of scenery enhancements to MSFS2020 for download that are not available here including a lot of the stadiums that are missing from the program. I know one of the scenery developers has been creating scenery for the Big Ten Universities so they might have some of the Minnesota landmarks that you are looking for as well. They also have a really nice interactive map to help you find scenery for the area that you are interested in. It would be nice if the files could be hosted here as well though because I prefer using this site, but unfortunately that is up to the creators of the content. Asobo has posted on the official Microsoft Flight Simulator Forum that they are working on a World Update for the United States similar to what they did for Japan so maybe it might be included when that is released as well. Hopefully this might help you with what you are looking for.

From what I noticed while flying in my area around Philadelphia PA, the Bing maps data that they are using seems to be from around 2015.

 

For the short time I had MSFS2020 I noticed no FMC building at 30th St. But the thing that gets me is no antenna farm in Manayunk. Its in FSX but not in XPlane or MSFS2020. Pilots use the antennas as a land mark coming off PTW.

as a follow up... i did manage to get a us bank stadium model into my sim setup using the sdk and other available utilities. drop me a reply if you would like me to share... its not the best but better than a hole in the ground.

donboucher, even if your scenery is not the best you could still upload your version of US Bank Stadium here for anyone who would like it to enjoy. You can always improve on it as you learn the SDK and at least a version would be available for anyone who wants it in the simulator until a better one is created and comes along. Texvindictive, I have also noticed a few buildings that are missing because of the data being a few years old but the scenery in MSFS2020 is much better for VFR flying than the previous versions of Flight Simulator. Long distance flying in the airliners seems to be a whole other issue but I am hoping this will get better as they are continually updating and improving the program. Another issue I have found is bridges like the Egg Harbor Bride for the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, NJ often go under the water and power plants like Three Mile Island and Limerick which are also often used for navigation landmarks and were in previous versions of Flight Simulator are also missing. I believe ASOBO said in their roadmap update that they are working on getting the AI to generate radio/TV antenna towers though so hopefully the Manayunk antenna farm will be back in MSFS2020 soon.

A "usable" version of my US Bank Stadium is now available in the file library. I have also started a web site to host some other missing Minnesota scenery I am working on.

http://www.flyinminnesota.com. Only 1 file so far available... the SDK is constantly changing, so a bit tough to get consistent results.

Thank you for the update and sharing your work with the community donbouchier. I look forward to seeing what else you create for MSFS 2020.

Yes, thank you for adding some MN scenery - MN is definitely underrepresented so far!

 

There is a payware Duluth Sky Harbor airport available. I bought it and it seems like a nice add.

I have come to the conclusion that spending a lot of money on hardware so that you can do video rendering in high detail is wasted effort. MSFS uses Bing maps which are outdated and inaccurate anyway. The FS graphics then uses cartoon caricatures of structures. Why bother to enhance the detail of such fluff?

 

Compare a zoomed in view of Google Earth to Bing maps and you'll quickly see what trash Bing maps are.

I put the US Bank Stadium folder in my Community folder. The stadium appeared, but all the rest of Minneapolis is missing. I then deleted the US Bank Stadium folder from my Community folder, the entire city is still missing! No problem with other scenery add-ons? What has happened?

This is an interesting problem. There is a small "exclude" file in the package to erase the default scenery underneath the add on, but it only covers a small area underneath the stadium and commons park. Deleting the package should make the default scenery re-appear including the under construction stadium. I have not seen any other threads describing that problem. I will write the guy that posts all the instuctional videos I follow and see if he has any observations. Let me know if the problem corrects itself with one of the numerous "updates" MSFS is releasing weekly. I am on the latest USA UPDATE version and everything appears normal for me including some other areas I have done like Duluth, Valleyfair, and Canterbury park... all of which are using "excludes" like USB stadium