Science & Technology

Asobo Studio manually edited 37,000 airports for Microsoft Flight Simulator

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2020/08/19 18:36

Today's Vocabulary

1.upgrade (n) 
a piece of software or equipment that improves the quality or usefulness of a computer or machine

2. hubs (n) 
the central or main part of something where there is most activity

3. graphics (n) 
pictures shown on a computer screen

4. rural (adj) 
in, of, or like the countyrside

5. runways (n) 
a long, level piece of ground with a specially prepared smooth, hard surface on which aircraft take off and land

6. windsocks (n)
a tube of cloth fastened at one end to a pole that shows the direction of the wind at an airport 

7. simulator (n) 
a piece of equipment that is designed to represent real conditions, for example in an aircraft or spacecraft

Asobo Studio manually edited 37,000 airports for Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Microsoft airplane game Flight Simulator has been upgraded to include every airport in the world. This means gamers will have a choice of over 37,000 airports to take off from and land at. The upgrade has added over 13,000 new airports to the previous version of the game, which included 24,000 airports.

The game includes international hubs like New York’s JFK and London Heathrow. It also includes tiny airports like rural, grassy landing strips and runways that are in the middle of deserts or on the top of mountains. The 37,000 airports in Flight Simulator have been manually designed to look like the real airports. Designers used satellite images and Bing Maps to do this.

The graphics are also much better in the latest release of Flight Simulator. The designers put a lot of work and effort into increasing the level of detail you see. Gamers will see windsocks blowing in the wind and service vehicles driving around the roads next to the runways.

The markings on the runways in the game are the same as those on the real runways. Lead game designer Sven Mestas said: “To reach a new level, we needed a new approach. We decided to innovate by editing airports from real satellite pictures. This technique involves editing each airport manually. This means we paid particular attention to detail to bring every airport a step closer to reality.”

Resource: https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2002/200229-flight-simulator.html

Discussion
  1. How many airports does Microsoft’s Flight Simulator now have?
  2. How many new airports did Microsoft add to Flight Simulator?
  3. Where did the article say there were airports in the middle of?
  4. What did designers do to each airport?
  5. What search engine did designers get their images from?

“Just because you have baggage doesn't mean you have to lug it around.”

Richie Norton

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