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Hello everyone,

Editing on JOSM I see Bing satellite images with a noticeably lower resolution compared to when I access them in a browser using iD. I noticed this difference 1-2 weeks ago so I don't know if an update might've changed settings in JOSM, because I'm pretty sure that when I first started using JOSM (>1 month ago) I got to see the Bing images with the exact same quality as on iD.

JOSM : alt text

iD : alt text

Does anyone have an explanation for this ?

asked 30 Jul '14, 21:37

Patrick%20FitzGerald's gravatar image

Patrick Fitz...
1111
accept rate: 0%

1

Not sure what happened to those links - they got lost somewhere. Maybe it would be possible to link to the area of the map where you see this?

(30 Jul '14, 23:39) SomeoneElse ♦

Sadly no image URLs in the question source text. Patrick, it would be nice if you could try to insert the images again: just use the "edit" (be logged in) link.

(31 Jul '14, 01:06) aseerel4c26 ♦

JOSM seems to have a problem accessing the bing server (since months if not years). If I switch on "bing" I do not see image tiles but red error message texts ("Fehler: Attribution is not loaded yet") instead (and many times "Bing: attribution data is not yet loaded." in the console). Zooming in and out then eventually brings images, but in clearly lower quality (apparently upscaled from a lower zoom level). (Update: okay, I just tried, after zooming in and out the quality was the same, this time).

What really helps is to switch on the bing layer twice (from the imagery menu) and then delete the older (the one on the bottom) bing layer in the layer selection box. The short delay between switching on the first and the second helps.

Of course this might also be a problem on my side, but it seems that you may experience the same problem … and I remotely remember having seen a JOSM bug for this. I think Bing (unsuccessfully) loads images before attribution data is ready is the relevant bug (open since 2012-01).

permanent link

answered 31 Jul '14, 01:04

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
32.6k18248554
accept rate: 18%

edited 31 Jul '14, 02:04

I have same problem as @aseerel4c26 , having to load Bing twice, but i have not noticed an improved res image. If there is a issue preventing the best res data being displayed it needs fixing soonest. I thought I was seeing higher resolution images for brief few days a few months ago but I am not sure now as you quickly become accustomed to taking the newer image for granted and spotting the imperfections . At the time I thought someone at Bing must have accidentally given us access to their top shelf stuff and then quickly withdrew it. For my area the Bing imagery we are allowed to use is a little poorer resolution than the google imagery that is not allowed to be used. I notice differences between what I see using Bing compared to examples that others have posted for the US and Europe and understand this to be due to more demand/more resources available in these areas.

(31 Jul '14, 01:38) nevw

maybe the bing area has better resolution in iD only for some areas? Could you please link you area (mine)? I would like to try with my JOSM.

What is definitely different is the upscaling algorithm if you zoom in more than there is bing imagery: JOSM does apparently nearest-neighbor interpolation but iD does apparently (in my Firefox) bilinear or bicubic interpolation. Could it be that you think that the different interpolation is a different quality?

(31 Jul '14, 01:55) aseerel4c26 ♦

@aseerel4c26 here is an image comparison between iD and Josm when zoomed in: JOSM, iD. I updated from JOSM Mac OS X package, ver 7287 to latest 7347 this morning. Both quite satisfactory and seem the same to me, though not good as some I see. link to area

(31 Jul '14, 03:50) nevw
1

to be honest, I don't see much difference between the two images here (maybe due to downscaling), maybe the darker iD image appear sharper to some, but not to me.

(31 Jul '14, 06:08) escada
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question asked: 30 Jul '14, 21:37

question was seen: 5,693 times

last updated: 31 Jul '14, 11:41

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum