Perhaps some day – a number of people have looked at this, both online and offline, in X-Plane and in other sim and non-sim communities!

Hi Benny,
Well, for osm2xp the problem is coverage — for the global scenery the problem is DVD space. 😉 That is, we cannot afford to create one facade per building and still fit on disk. But yes, coverage in OSM can be a problem too, for any data layer.

The facade 2 engine will allow for nicer buildings, but it may not be appropriate for OSM…it generates more polygons to create those nice buildings. It’s really intended for airports.

But there are also some facade upgrades for both types of facades, so even with the ‘cheaper’ ones there will be some tricks you can use!

just an idea, but like i said, maybe you guys have thought of this already.

The main problem with buildings in open street map is coverage.
Some parts of the world are very detailled (France, eastern europe as exemple), when United States are nearly empty.
It would be the major concern for xplane global scenery in my opinion.

So yes osm2xp can make custom scenery matching xposm roads/xplane10 osm roads, as long as you want a zone where open street maps buildings data is rich enough.

There’s also the possibility to add buildings data to your local area, that’s what the italian xplane community is doing.

Xplane 10 new facades spec will also help generating better looking buildings from osm data, i think i should be able to release an enhanced Osm2XP version a few days after xplane10 is out.