Here’s a brief look at Bing Maps and the history of geospatial technologies at Microsoft from Encarta Atlas and TerraServer through to Virtual Earth and the freshly released Flight Sim. The Bing Maps team have been pioneers, innovating so many great features over the years like hybrid maps and birds eye, many of which contributed to the creation of Flight Sims environment. As mentioned in the video, aerial imagery is a big differentiator, especially oblique angled imagery, when applied to texturing buildings and other structures.
There’s a nice tip near the end of the video; fire up the Windows 10 Maps app and go into 3d mode to experience much of the same environment as Flight Sim. And here’s my additional tip for added thrill – plug in a USB XBOX controller and fly around effortlessly. Why is this app so hard to find in Windows?
The Ground Truth 