We've heard some made-up stories but this is ridiculous: Microsoft Flight Simulator, Bing erect huge skyscraper out of bad data
- Reference: 1597951609
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/20/flight_simulator_bing_fawkner_tower/
- Source link:
It can be seen on Bing Maps and, more vividly, in the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, thanks to an errant entry in OpenStreetMap, which is based on community-edited data.
Towering over the otherwise low-lying Melbourne suburb, the structure stands 212 stories tall. If it were designed with a height per floor of 16.67 feet, the average of the 163-story, 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai, it would be the world's tallest building.
[1]
More tower to you ... The errant erection in Microsoft's Flight Simulator
Click to enlarge
But by Microsoft's measure, it's [2]just over 2,300 feet , or about 10.8 feet per floor, short of Dubai's giant but [3]ahead of Shanghai Tower . Given the software Windows giant's embrace of open office floor plans – sold as pro-collaborative but conveniently a [4]real estate cost saving scheme – it's perhaps not surprising that Redmond imagines something less than the [5]14-foot per story average .
The awesome structure exists, internet sleuths [6]have found , because about a year ago, OpenStreetMap user nathanwright120 [7]made an edit that listed the building as having 212 stories rather than just two.
The incorrect figure has since been fixed, but evidently not before Microsoft, which uses OpenStreetMap data, incorporated the alteration into its [8]latest Flight Simulator and into [9]Bing Maps .
The fanciful tower has [10]delighted virtual pilots and inspired attempts to land on its roof:
[11]Youtube Video
The Register has attempted to contact nathanwright120 via OpenStreetMap's message system to learn whether the mismeasurement was the result of a typo or whether it was deliberate. We've not heard back.
We also asked Microsoft whether it intends to right-size the overly tall house in future updates to Bing and Flight Simulator. No word yet. ®
PS: Flight Simulator uses artificial intelligence to fill out its 3D world from flat maps by guessing the height of things and where road traffic flows and so on. In various places, it gets it very wrong – as [12]this Twitter thread illustrates.
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/20/microsoft_tower2.jpg
[2] https://youtu.be/GhrGEdO88kE?t=96
[3] https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/buildings
[4] https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices
[5] https://theskydeck.com/how-tall-is-a-storey-in-feet/
[6] https://twitter.com/liamosaur/status/1296305262144364544?s=20
[7] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/712475718/history#map=17/-37.71889/144.96400
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/17/microsoft_flight_simulator_2020_review/
[9] https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=9b571601-b493-40f1-80fe-b2bc8e1d723b&cp=-37.716596~144.961928&lvl=17&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
[10] https://twitter.com/alexandermuscat/status/1296010700746194945?s=20
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhrGEdO88kE&feature=emb_title
[12] https://twitter.com/JanelleCShane/status/1296528940652265472
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Is it ...
Well, virtually everything.
Roof
Back in the day (20 years?) I could land on the roof of the Willis Tower in Chicago on the MS flight sim. Moved on to a better sim.
Re: Roof
You might just be a shit-hot pilot and you don't know it.
Re: Roof
Nah, anyone who can fly a plane can land on the top of that tower. All it requires is a sufficiently high windspeed and absolutely no turbulence, and appoaching it from downwind. Practically an every day event! (I am not a pilot, but I am an excellent passenger...).
The (very crude) flight sim for the Research Machines 480Z had an integer wrap around bug. Put the "airplane" into a vertical climb, and wait for the airspeed to drop to 20, 10, then 5, 2, 1 and 0 knots. At that point you'd expect the plane to start falling, tail first. Nope, airspeed was an unsigned integer and it would underflow, meaning you now had an airspeed of 65535 knots straight up, or about M.86. Weeeeheeeee!
Intentional Error?
I've come across maps in the past where there was an intentional error, e.g. a small side street with a specific name that doesn't actually exist. They were introduced intentionally to detect people using the dataset without a license. "We're not using your data, we swear!" -- "Oh yeah? What about X street here?"
I wonder if this could be something similar...
Re: Intentional Error?
[1]OpenStreetMap copyright traps
[1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2008/04/01/copyright-easter-eggs/
Re: Intentional Error?
I spent ages recently trying to figure out what an island that simply did not exist was doing on a bunch of old maps. Turns out it's called Friesland, and was probably just an error that got copied and copied for a good hundred years or so. Maybe they were up to that shit in the sixteenth century too?
Re: Intentional Error?
Back in the days of hand-engraved OS maps cartographers would try to get their names or initials onto the map. Unfortunately I've never found any.
Re: Intentional Error?
Years ago some chap did get their name into the detail of some cliff somewhere on the Isle of Wight I think it was. But that probably got spotted and editted out in later editions.
Edit: Yep, found it [1]http://www.paulplowman.com/stuff/isle-of-wight-map-hidden-names/
[1] http://www.paulplowman.com/stuff/isle-of-wight-map-hidden-names/
Someplace I still have my copy of Flight Simulator from around 1995. I wonder if Sporty's in Batavia will let me trade it in for the new version & work on my license?
could you really land on a small roof like that with a single engine rock, err i mean aeroplane ?
Is it ...
... in an approach pattern? It could be true that everything in Australia is trying to kill you.