Vfr Belgium Photoscenery

[Bernabie 0]

NOTE: links and images removed as it seems to be clear this is piracy.

It's something that I already for quite some time wanted to do being a bit in the blue when flying over Germany or England and Wales and SoCal, and also can show with this how worth it is to have a VFR Belgium for FSX, perhaps in a sort of Benelux package because it really is worth the effort.

Here below just a few shots of a trip from Antwerp to Ghent over Eeklo and Zelzate back to Ghent. But there is also VFR photoscenery availability for as good as 3/4 of Belgium at the moment. Tho it is originally only intended for FS2004, then it works in FSX too. The quality is of course not FSX, but I'm already pleased to have found this.

The best way to fly over it will of course be with a helicopter or a light airplane because the scenery in FSX has a great difficulty with higher speeds of above 120 knots. Altitude of flight preferable above 5000 feet. But otherwise a great scenery and a A+ for the one who made this work available for the FS community.

Here is a link to his work

xxxxxxxx

There will probably be no FSX update of his work in the style we all are most used to these days having Horizon scenery and/or the ones of Aerosoft including the MegaScenery in the States.

So hopefully some people at Aerosoft can catch in on this and contact the creator of this one and work something out to get it professionally done for FSX because it's really magnificent when you can take in FSX the perfect shot in this for FS2004 work when at the right altitude and the perfect slow speed.

So I hope you will enjoy the pictures taken from the place I live to the one I work now and worked before.

images removed by moderator

Many people who have visited Ghent or do also live there will surely in the last pic notice the Zuid and the Graaf van Vlaanderenstreet that leads to the St-Baafs cathedral, the Belfort and the Korenmarkt.

And one thing I would also like to add as you can clearly witness it in the picture before the last one is that the work for the VFR Ghent scenery is very recent photo material as the new yacht harbour at the Steendam bridge in Ghent close to the Dampoort has just recently been finished equally the re-opening again of a piece of the canal around the center of Ghent or the oldest part of Ghent thus. So that material can not be older then 2 years.

Hopefully you liked it and comments are of course always most welcome.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

My first comment would be... who owns the copyright to those images? Not at all trying to say something is wrong or illegal and I don't know the product, but images of those quality are very seldom without rights. In fact we pay thousands of Euro's for those kinds of images most of the time. Recently there has been a very good looking freeware photo scenery of a good part of Germany but it was totally illegal and can only be found amongst the 'sex with animal' files by now on sites where half the files contain viruses. Again, not pointing any finger and I stand corrected if all is made with images that do not have any rights that prevent use like this, the documents do not contain any information on that.

But a commercial project for the Benelux like this would mean buying a small fortune on geo referenced images, we don't see that commercially possible at this moment. Even though I personally would certainly like it. I might live in France but I was born and raised in Amsterdam and flown 250 hours over Holland in Pipers.

[ArnoldVDH 0]

My first comment would be... who owns the copyright to those images? Not at all trying to say something is wrong or illegal and I don't know the product, but images of those quality are very seldom without rights. In fact we pay thousands of Euro's for those kinds of images most of the time. Recently there has been a very good looking freeware photo scenery of a good part of Germany but it was totally illegal and can only be found amongst the 'sex with animal' files by now on sites where half the files contain viruses. Again, not pointing any finger and I stand corrected if all is made with images that do not have any rights that prevent use like this, the documents do not contain any information on that.

But a commercial project for the Benelux like this would mean buying a small fortune on geo referenced images, we don't see that commercially possible at this moment. Even though I personally would certainly like it. I might live in France but I was born and raised in Amsterdam and flown 250 hours over Holland in Pipers.

Hi Mathijs,

Could you please explain a bit more about what you call "commercially possible".

I assume you mean there is no market for it that would support a Benelux product.

If my assumption is correct then I must say I am surprised you say so.

My thought here is that during the first week of November, you have a show in Holland I think at the airport in Leiden.

Why would you have an air simulation show in a country where you believe a product would not be commercially possible.

Surely by having a show in Holland (to which mostly Dutch and Belgian people would go) you must realise there would be a huge interest in a product such as VFR Benelux.

Regards,

Arnold.

[JamesChams 108]

Thank you Bernabie for a Sim Tour of your home; I quite enjoyed it. I lived near there (around 1990's) for a short time and long to go back to Belgium and Holland for a visit.

Regards,

[Bernabie 0]

Thanks everyone for the reactions till now.

And yes Matthijs I can see your point , but I can't of course neither say if it's legal or illegal . And I don't think that people should be afraid of downloading viruses because the downloads do stand on the server of Windows Live, namely Windows Live SkyDrive. So I do suppose that before it being put onto such a server that it has been tested on possible viruses as well as is mostly the common norm today with professional businesses like Microsoft and many Internet Service Providers (ISP's). And this does me thinking that the creator has used and is using virus free pictures for his project of the whole of Belgium.

There is an email on the link page, and the creator has also his own main page where this link is only a section out of it as I noticed by cutting it a bit short.

So I suppose that the best to know if a lot has to be paid, and if that person is maybe a wealthy person who has paid for it, or who knows has done the flight himself by taking those pictures as the pros would do, is to email him and see what he writes back.

If everything is really legal then I think that it would be a shame if not some sort of deal could be made with him, as he has the pictures for a VFR Belgium while Horizon Simulation has them for the Netherlands, and so only Luxembourg is to be done.

After all, for what I remember has there been a VFR Netherlands on the market for FS2004 and was it the intention to go for FSX version as well by Horizon. There is even a shop in Belgium that already has it on its list as a product to be sold and released by the end of this year, but what I assume to be not possible perhaps taking in consideration that Horizon has switched its preferences more to Scotland then to the Netherlands for the release of their next VFR product.

Anyhow, everything would be there for as good as the entire BeNeLux, which at the same time would be a great thing to have for we have VFR Germany of Aerosoft, and VFR of England meaning that you would be able to fly in due time from the east of Germany all the way to England over VFR scenery.

I don't know, but would this not be a tempting situation for many FSX flyers to be able to do that, even when they are not so familiar with Belgium. This entire section of the world not only VFR photoscenery at low altitude, but with FS altitude also at high altitude, which means that you would when descending to land just be switching into another VFR photoscenery and not the default one from the east of Germany all the way till the west of England, not to mention that we now have also the Swiss package as well.

Yeah, maybe I'm dreaming, but I think many Dutch and Belgian FSX flyers are surely doing the same hoping that it may become true and very real one day. And in another forum are there even Americans who are interested in this scenery for a pure FSX version as well as I just noticed. So there is clearly also an interest for it not just only in the Netherlands and Belgium, or in the European part of the world.

I don't know if I have wet your appetite Matthijs, but of course still can't tell if that Belgium scenery is done fully legal or not. Sometimes a simple email to the creator can do wonders to that I hope .

Oh, and would it not be great to be flying once again over Holland in those pipers in FSX this time?

P.S. And in another forum I put this onto have I got the advice to put the fps at 20 to fly over this scenery in FSX. But I don't know yet myself in how this will fare on my own PC and so can't comment how it behaves with the SF260 or other aircrafts like the Cessna for instance.

[ManuelL 71]

I expect it is a huge differnce using photograhic source data for non-comercial and commercial projects. Sometimes developers of freeware sceneries are alowed to use high resolution photographic data for their scenery, provided the source is named and the project remains strictly freeware. However, you may have to pay a lot of money for the source data, if you would want to use it for commercial purposes.

[Bernabie 0]

Yes, you probably will have it right Manuel, but I thought that there would be nothing wrong from Aerosoft to just ask and see what the creator responds back.

You never know what comes from it, and maybe a bit cheaper.

For all we know, then this guy could have done it all by himself for instance and would be willing to sell or do the work for Aerosoft.

It probably won't happen based on what Matthijs wrote, but yeah: Who knows.

There is in any case a lot of interest in it I think.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

I expect it is a huge differnce using photograhic source data for non-comercial and commercial projects. Sometimes developers of freeware sceneries are alowed to use high resolution photographic data for their scenery, provided the source is named and the project remains strictly freeware. However, you may have to pay a lot of money for the source data, if you would want to use it for commercial purposes.

That's really rare this moment, for personal use, and for occasional use on a web page there is a lot possible. But for something shared like this with others... I got my doubts and as the files do not contain any information on it I prefer not to use them at this moment.

Btw we are about to release VFR Netherlands from Horizon with 50 cm pixels and that's totally legit of course!

[Bernabie 0]

That's great news Matthijs!! with regard to the Netherlands

Any idea when we will be able to buy it.

Any chance to get them to put Belgium in it as well as a plus bonus?

Sorry couldn't help myself.

I know knowing that they won't be that happy to release first this that they probably won't be that jumpy to do a bonus with the package.

But I thought that it couldn't hurt to ask. As they say: A no you have, and a yes it can be if so possible.

And if your worries about the Belgium scenery would be lessening Matthijs, then here is the creator's email address in case:

willem.vandervoort@pandora.be

With me is the scenery installed on my system of course for otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take those pictures, but my PC seems to keep behaving perfectly. Even FSX doesn't give any problems whatsoever on my system tho that I must admit that I for the moment due to a new job have not that much time to fly anyway.

Personally do I think that we can be assured that it's problem free for otherwise no creator would use his very own name as the emailadress I suppose. But then again can such a reasoning of course be naive of my part based on what is going on on the net these days. But should we put honest people into the same category as the criminals just because these criminals have put an immense fear into our heart resulting in a situation whereas we starting to push everyone into the same box so to speak.

P.S. I just noticed also that there are two new additional areas of Belgium ready, namely Ostend VFR and Chimay VFR.

http://users.skynet.be/fa926657/Belgium-VFR.htm

And below the main address of the creator's website:

http://users.skynet.be/fa926657/index2.html

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Well, I am now pretty sure that this is pure piracy and that it is done by somebody not to smart as his name etc is so easy to find. The images used are copyrighted images from our partner Aerodata. As always it is movement that shows where it comes from. Check the two images below and note how the ships are in the exact same locations. What would be the odds of that? We have reported the use of copyright material to Aerodata and the person who put this online is way up a smelly creek with no means of propulsion. I am talking very serious money in compensations here and as we already bought part of the images we might start a legal prociding as well as we now will most likely not do a VFR Belgium.

If you have this on your system and have read this email you should remove it. Sorry.

[Bernabie 0]

I see Matthijs, but what about what Alex writes?

I saw that he has it right too that everyone can take it from Google as well.

And if I'm not wrong, then there does or has existed a program on the net wherewith people could transform those Google pics into a VFR photographicscenery for FS2004 and/or FSX.

I think that even Aerosoft gave a free downloadable software product to do the same with regard to Luxembourg, but noticed everyone at the same time that it can be used to create photographic scenery for Luxembourg city while not quite sure if it would be legal to put photo's taken when flying in FSX online.

It's becoming all a bit confusing to me I must say.

Based on what you write, then it's illegal to have the photo scenery on the system, yes??

But if the software used to create the scenery is legal, and the creator has taken his pics from Google to do so, then it would not be illegal to have it on your PC, but it is advisable to not put pictures on the net of it.

Would this be correct because I assume it to be of interest to many, as most of us do not know a lot about these issues between using is legal for instance, but showing that you have is maybe not so.

Then another question Matthijs: Is the reason why you do not want to do a Belgium VFR anymore for FSX because of this?

I'm a bit confused as you wrote that your partner has bought the data for a possible VFR Belgium, and so am a bit puzzled why not using it then based on the fact that it cost a lot of money to buy it.

Why buying the data and then do nothing with it anymore?

Belgium is after all not that a lot bigger then Hawaii, or certainly not Venice, isn't it?

Just a few questions from a confused person now.

P.S. And Matthijs: Based on what Alex wrote, could it then not be that the person has paid Google for the right to use it?

If that's the case, then it would be legal, yes?

Just asking me these few additional questions because I'm certain that a person who puts his real name so easily on the net must on the one hand maybe not be aware that he's doing something illegal, or is certain that everything that he does is done legal.

I think that thus the best way to know this is to contact the person in question without much fuzz for the time being and see what he responds back, or will write on his website as a clarification for instance.

Maybe the person is very rich, and so wanted to do something for the FS community by, as I wrote earlier, paying Google for everything what needs to be paid so that everything would be legal based on how it will be used by him and those who download it to their system and this on Google terms of rules to this matter.

Then the only thing that he would have forgotten to do is to put this also in the Read Me file very clearly to this regard, or is something that he will do when everything for the whole of Belgium is done for FS2004 and not FSX.

P.S. bis I just noticed also that the developer of the scenery has taken his VFR Belgium photographic scenery away from the net!!

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

I see Matthijs, but what about what Alex writes?

I saw that he has it right too that everyone can take it from Google as well.

And if I'm not wrong, then there does or has existed a program on the net wherewith people could transform those Google pics into a VFR photographicscenery for FS2004 and/or FSX.

I think that even Aerosoft gave a free downloadable software product to do the same with regard to Luxembourg, but noticed everyone at the same time that it can be used to create photographic scenery for Luxembourg city while not quite sure if it would be legal to put photo's taken when flying in FSX online.

It's becoming all a bit confusing to me I must say.

Based on what you write, then it's illegal to have the photo scenery on the system, yes??

But if the software used to create the scenery is legal, and the creator has taken his pics from Google to do so, then it would not be illegal to have it on your PC, but it is advisable to not put pictures on the net of it.

Would this be correct because I assume it to be of interest to many, as most of us do not know a lot about these issues between using is legal for instance, but showing that you have is maybe not so.

Then another question Matthijs: Is the reason why you do not want to do a Belgium VFR anymore for FSX because of this?

I'm a bit confused as you wrote that your partner has bought the data for a possible VFR Belgium, and so am a bit puzzled why not using it then based on the fact that it cost a lot of money to buy it.

Why buying the data and then do nothing with it anymore?

Belgium is after all not that a lot bigger then Hawaii, or certainly not Venice, isn't it?

Just a few questions from a confused person now.

P.S. And Matthijs: Based on what Alex wrote, could it then not be that the person has paid Google for the right to use it?

If that's the case, then it would be legal, yes?

Just asking me these few additional questions because I'm certain that a person who puts his real name so easily on the net must on the one hand maybe not be aware that he's doing something illegal, or is certain that everything that he does is done legal.

I think that thus the best way to know this is to contact the person in question without much fuzz for the time being and see what he responds back, or will write on his website as a clarification for instance.

Maybe the person is very rich, and so wanted to do something for the FS community by, as I wrote earlier, paying Google for everything what needs to be paid so that everything would be legal based on how it will be used by him and those who download it to their system and this on Google terms of rules to this matter.

Then the only thing that he would have forgotten to do is to put this also in the Read Me file very clearly to this regard, or is something that he will do when everything for the whole of Belgium is done for FS2004 and not FSX.

P.S. bis I just noticed also that the developer of the scenery has taken his VFR Belgium photographic scenery away from the net!!

Yes I warned the developer that he is in troubles with this as he clearly violates copyrights, I know that the copyright holders of the data (aerodata) already is on the case. Basically it is all very simple. You can download the images to your own system (for example to use them in Google Earth), but you are not allowed to share them in any way unless you got the commercial license to do so. This Belgium scenery amounts to piracy, even though the developer told me he did not realize it was not allowed.

My strong reaction is caused by the fact we were about to buy some Belgium imagery for a new project. Costs a good deal of money. Just before I ordered the files I saw that somebody put something online that is illegal and makes my project almost impossible. And believe me, this was a pretty high end bit of Belgium scenery that now most likely will not be done. A clear case where copyright violation hurts Aerosoft (and indirect the Belgium customers).

[Bernabie 0]

Yes I warned the developer that he is in troubles with this as he clearly violates copyrights, I know that the copyright holders of the data (aerodata) already is on the case. Basically it is all very simple. You can download the images to your own system (for example to use them in Google Earth), but you are not allowed to share them in any way unless you got the commercial license to do so. This Belgium scenery amounts to piracy, even though the developer told me he did not realize it was not allowed.

My strong reaction is caused by the fact we were about to buy some Belgium imagery for a new project. Costs a good deal of money. Just before I ordered the files I saw that somebody put something online that is illegal and makes my project almost impossible. And believe me, this was a pretty high end bit of Belgium scenery that now most likely will not be done. A clear case where copyright violation hurts Aerosoft (and indirect the Belgium customers).

Yes I see and understand Matthijs, but what I'm a bit confuzed with now is why not going forward with the project?

The scenery has been taken away from the net completely, and it was not done for FSX at all. I just got a reaction from the one who made it available for FS2004 and he was not ready to make a FSX version nor commercializing it in anyway. I think he probably was so saddened that no Belgium scenery was to be developed for even FS2004 that he thought to do something good, and certainly not wrong so to help the flight sim community.

And how many flight simmers in the community don't think within the same concept as him when you look at the many free downloads at Avsim?

And yes, it's certainly within the flight sim community not always clear what is permissable and not, especially when you are not lectured in the matter of copyright. I suppose like many of us simmers that he got himself quite confused when a program became available online wherewith you could copy photos of Google Earth I think, and then put them into that pogram which on itself would then create the VFR photographic scenery for FS2004 and/or FSX.

I'm sure you yourself Matthijs will probably have come across it, as it stood in one of those popular flight sim forums, namely the one of Avsim if I'm not mistaken. The only reason why I myself went not along with it is because I read that there were at the time still a lot of problems plus that it was a program that was not that easy to handle or to work with unless you know what you were doing, plus that I'm on that end of using the computer through such type of software a complete zero whilst not forgetting that you need a lot of time which I don't have.

But based on the fact that some scenery pictures where put into forums of the software at work, and how good it was in FSX clearly demonstrates that many flight simmers must have been completely unaware that even putting pictures online could have been not right as Aerosoft itself mentioned with regard to their Luxembourg city free downloadable demo software scenery project. I don't know if the software still is inexistence or not as I haven't keep track of it, meaning the one for Google Earth in the Avsim forum.

Anyhow, that the creator of the Belgium scenery has taken it immediately offline seems to indicate that he really did not do so with wrong intend, which means I think and suppose that the market for a Belgium scenery as you spoke of will be still as large now and in the future as it was before. I myself for instance will not hesitate one single millisecond to buy it as a scenery for FSX will be far better for my enjoyment of flying over Belgium then one for FS2004 due to the simple fact that you would be able to fly at a quite very low altitude something that becomes very interesting when there would also be autogen in place like the one of VFR Germany of Aerosoft for instance or like London now.

Personally do I think that now thanks to this thread also that not many will attempt to make a scenery for free of Belgium anyway now that things have become completely clear to this regard which would give Aerosoft full freedom to go it full steam ahead when still wanted. And you will probably always have people with a lot of knowledge in computer science who for themselves will create them scenery projects, but then not for others then just for yourself.

Should that prevent professional scenery developers from doing the same for the community market?

I personally don't think so because then no scenery at all would be forthcoming at all while everyone would be forced to do it themselves all alone if they can do so but won't do much flying at the end which would you start wondering why you bought a flight sime at all in the first place.

So basically if I understood it correctly Matthijs is everyone allowed to donwload the pictures from Google Earth to their system, and even create a scenery for FSX for instance if they have a software tool to do so, but not allowed to share it with the flight sim community. But what about the few who would have downloaded it to their system because if many people would have downloaded that Avsim software when so and would have been able to work with the sofware, then doesn't that fall a bit into the same problem in that everyone would have made a lot of VFR scenery for themselves fully free even when having not shared it nor putting photos online of it?

It seems that there is or has a sort of grey zone being/been created within the flight sim community that has put a lot of confusion in a few or more then a few flight simmers who want or wanted to do good, and have mastered the skills of developing things whether scenery or aircrafts and such.

I think that it would be good to have some rules and regulations standing in one and the same place online about what can and what can't be done perhaps on the FS Microsoft website whereas every forum and FS developer points with a clear link on their website to this FS Microsoft page so that it would clearly be available and readable for everyone without exception. It would be a good thing I think now that FS has grow more from an adventurous project into a full professional tool, and even recognized by the FAA as such.

Many flight simmers are most probably still thinking within the old concept of being part of the FS family and trying to help one another out with new things they have been able to create themselves so to give something to the community while the FS itself at the same time has grown into a complete professional flight sim instruction tool with everything that comes with it. To me it seems that the Microsoft Flight Sim sits in a sort of transition with on one hand many in the community who want it to be as before like we have come to witness with regard to the many problems between FS2004 and FSX compatibility and those within the Microsoft developers world who want to push it beyond the concept of just a product marketed as a game, then a fully intergrated instruction tool to be used within the professional flying business.

But then: Can those few who have donwloaded the Belgium scenery already now keep it on their system whithout sharing it whether by thus not putting it themselves online so to speak and/or not putting photos of it online in forums?

Or should it be no matter what deleted completely from the system?

In any case, and this is my personal view, do I think that there will still be a great market waiting to finally buy them a Belgium scenery project from Aerosoft because otherwise will there maybe another running away with the cheese so to speak like perhaps FS Dreamscape or Feelthere unless it would be known that they themselves concentrate them only on U.S.A. scenery projects with also Canada.

And on a sidenote Matthijs: Do you as being from Aerosoft know more alreayd about what Microsoft has decided with regard to the next FS 11 in terms of scenery compatibility? Will we be able to put all those expensive scenery projects that many bought into a possible FS 11?

Well, I think and suppose that many will be devastated if all those expensive scenery packages couldn't be used in a next FS. You just have to make a calculation with all that is yet available to know to what amount of money it surmounts. It's not something you hope to have to pay once more again especially when the FSX scenery is very good quality at low altitude.