3 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Ive been using Bing. I notice that the google ones are awful. 

Bing are very good, but in the UK it is autumn brown everywhere.  Apple maps are detailed but green.

3 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Ive been using Bing. I notice that the google ones are awful. 

Bing are very good, but in the UK it is autumn brown everywhere.  Apple maps are detailed but green.

13 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I have been using MET with high quality Apple Maps over the UK and USA with very good results.  MET allows brightness, contrast and saturation to be changed for the terrain tiles.  This is good because you don't have to globally adjust these attributes and ruin the global scene.  If you buy the Pro version of MET (very cheap), you can use High Quality tiles, which are higher resolution than those found in TrueEarth.

Okay, I owe you guys a couple good pints,😁

I gave it a try yesterday on an area where I have some non-TrueEarth freeware ortho and it's a VAST improvement when paired with Sim Heaven autogen!

And IDK what the ME videos were I saw on YT, but the installed product is FAR superior.

I did run into one airport that has a cloud right smack dab in the middle of the Ortho, but hey, I can mostly look past that.

ME is so promising so far that I'm going to sign up for a month of Pro and see if the optional sources & features are worthwhile.

Now, I haven't yet directly compared to TrueEarth.

I have a feeling that I'm still going to use TE where it's available due to the combo of the hand placed & custom scenery plus the TE custom autogen. 

We'll see...

While I understand that TE's Ortho might be out of date, I can easily live with that as I don't live in those places anymore, so the delta won't bother me.

Anyhow, still going to give it a whirl - I might get another pleasant surprise!

Many thanks for @MrBitstFlyer  and @Ianrivaldosmith - I would never have tried this if not for your recommendation!

4 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

ME is so promising so far that I'm going to sign up for a month of Pro and see if the optional sources & features are worthwhile.

Well worth it to get access to higher resolution terrain.  TrueEarth colours are nice, so increase saturation of terrain tiles in MET to mirror what you see with TrueEarth.

6 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I have a feeling that I'm still going to use TE where it's available due to the combo of the hand placed & custom scenery plus the TE custom autogen. 

We'll see...

You can freely use TE hand placed objects & autogen above MET ortho. I've done it with Autoortho in XP11, left ORBX GB autogen.

13 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

 If you buy the Pro version of MET (very cheap), you can use High Quality tiles, which are higher resolution than those found in TrueEarth.

Not so cheap for individuals running a network. For me it would be $160.00 a year, add that on top of my other yearly subscriptions. Would be nice... Maybe in the future AutoOrtho will have its own algorithms to increase the quality on the fly.

23 minutes ago, Pe11e said:

You can freely use TE hand placed objects & autogen above MET ortho. I've done it with Autoortho in XP11, left ORBX GB autogen.

Okay, COOL!

I will give that a shot, too. 👍

1 hour ago, Pe11e said:

You can freely use TE hand placed objects & autogen above MET ortho. I've done it with Autoortho in XP11, left ORBX GB autogen.

Has anyone used MET with XP v11...? They noted it's not officially supported due to one or two intermittent issues, but that in general it's functional...

I've been bringing the Hot Start TBM out of the storage hangar, and MET would be an even bigger improvement for v11 than it is for v12.

If not, I can keep using the True Earth regions.

And, @Pe11e, thank YOU for the reco to try the TE autogen on top of MET!

1 hour ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

Not so cheap for individuals running a network. For me it would be $160.00 a year, add that on top of my other yearly subscriptions. Would be nice... Maybe in the future AutoOrtho will have its own algorithms to increase the quality on the fly.

Yeah, man - the costs rack up quickly when you're running multiple computers!  😕

Tho I have just a couple very short flights with it, the base product is $0. 

I haven't yet tried the paid sub, but the free version is such a fundamental improvement over Default that I won't hesitate to keep using it even if I decide to discontinue the subscription.

Edited May 29, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

2 hours ago, Pe11e said:

You can freely use TE hand placed objects & autogen above MET ortho. I've done it with Autoortho in XP11, left ORBX GB autogen.

Wait, so I can use orbx true earth hand placed autogen without using their ortho overlays, and just use map enhancement with their autogen?! 

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Has anyone used MET with XP v11...? They noted it's not officially supported due to one or two intermittent issues, but that in general it's functional...

I've been bringing the Hot Start TBM out of the storage hangar, and MET would be an even bigger improvement for v11 than it is for v12.

If not, I can keep using the True Earth regions.

And, @Pe11e, thank YOU for the reco to try the TE autogen on top of MET!

Yeah, that is my plan too, to try MET in XP11. Many reason to do it (higher resolution comparing to AutoOrtho, simplicity of use), but not sure how to do it since I primerily use AO in XP11. Tried disabling all AO entries, and add MET one, didn't worked. Maybe I missed something...

56 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Wait, so I can use orbx true earth hand placed autogen without using their ortho overlays, and just use map enhancement with their autogen?! 

Yes. That is the beauty of XP11/12, customization. You can freely leave Orbx autogen/object entries in scenery_packs.ini, and put _DISABLED for their ortho entries, and then run MET. The example for "_DISABLED" command in the ini:

SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-7-forests/ 

On 5/26/2025 at 7:46 AM, pscharff said:

I am using SimHeaven and GF.

You need to deactivate the forest-layer of all SimHeaven parts. I use the tool "xToolbox"  for these operations.

Moreover in the "scenery_packs.ini" place the GF layer between the SimHeaven vegetation layer and the other SimHeaven layers.

.....

SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Asia-6-scenery/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Asia-8-network/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-1-vfr/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-2-regions/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-3-details/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-4-extras/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-5-footprints/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-6-scenery/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Europe-8-network/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Global_Forests_v2/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-World_Vegetation_Library/

.....

In XP12 I have "3D vegetation" activated.

Patric

How do you change the order of the files? By editing the time properties of the file?

1 minute ago, alanw2005 said:

How do you change the order of the files? By editing the time properties of the file?

You reorder the entries in the "scenery_packs.ini" file that is located in the "Custom Scenery" folder. Entries higher in the .ini file will take priority over lower entries.

40 minutes ago, alanw2005 said:

How do you change the order of the files? By editing the time properties of the file?

The files themselves are not ordered - there is one file called scenery_packs.ini.  It is the lines in that file that are ordered in any text editor like notepad.

59 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

The files themselves are not ordered - there is one file called scenery_packs.ini.  It is the lines in that file that are ordered in any text editor like notepad.

Thanks. I just flew an approach to Vancouver International and there were 100 foot trees at the begining of the airport.