VIS-1: Building visual fidelity vs. Google Earth (real heights / textures / 3D tiles) — data-limited

[yorkerhodes3]

Migrated from yorkerhodes3/race-condition-mod#20 on 2026-08-15.
Originally opened by @yorkerhodes3 on 2026-07-31. Development moved to this
repository, so the issue was recreated here — GitHub cannot transfer issues
between repositories with different owners. The original is closed and points
here.

---

VIS-1 — Building visual fidelity vs. a Google Earth view (data-limited)

One honest open item (not fabricated). After the city case-study scenarios landed (Paris 82b848f, Barcelona d3a347b, Venice 5cf4b42, NYC c7ce359), the deeper "inspect visuals vs. a Google Earth view / extrapolate satellite or Street View onto the buildings" request is only partially met.

The schematic scenes currently render real building footprints with hashed heights only — there is no facade or satellite texture, and satellite imagery is link-out only (Esri Wayback provider terms; we link rather than re-host). Closing that gap would need a licensed 3D-tiles / photogrammetry source (e.g. Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles, Cesium ion, or equivalent), which is not vendored here. Flagged as data-limited rather than claiming a fidelity we don't have.

What is real today

Per each web/frontend/public/scenarios/<id>/README.md:

• Buildings: HIGH — real OpenStreetMap footprint centroids (Overpass, ODbL).
• Building heights: synthetic — hashed skyline variation, not real storeys.
• Zones / exits / corridors / demographics: illustrative (documented).
• NYC Marathon (nyc/marathon.geojson): MEDIUM — approximate 45-waypoint polyline; ~37.4 km straight-chord vs. the official 42.195 km (~88%). Shape and borough sequence faithful, absolute distance approximate.

Recommended next steps (rough order of effort/fidelity)

1. Real heights, no texture (cheap, high value): pull OSM building:levels / height tags in the Overpass query and drive extrusion from them instead of the hash. Keeps ODbL, no new provider.
2. Footprint polygons instead of centroids: fetch full way geometry (out geom;) so buildings extrude their true outline, not a box at a point.
3. Satellite drape (terms permitting): evaluate a basemap/tiles provider whose licence allows re-hosting/overlay; drape orthoimagery on the ground plane and/or building tops.
4. Photorealistic 3D tiles: integrate Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles or Cesium ion for true facades — highest fidelity; requires API key, cost, and licence review; would replace the schematic renderer for these scenarios.
5. Marathon distance: trace the surveyed GPX centreline to close the ~12% length gap if exact distance matters.

Guardrail

Whatever lands must keep the Vegas scenario render-identical (all city behaviour stays gated on schematicFocus / the GLB-less path) and must not overstate fidelity — keep the per-layer honesty in each README and in scenarios/city-scenarios.ts fidelity.

Where to look

• Renderer: web/frontend/src/app/viewport/scene/schematic-site.ts (addBuildings height hashing, footprint scale).
• Data + parsing: web/frontend/src/app/scenarios/geo.ts (parseBuildings already accepts [lon,lat(,h)] — a height channel exists).
• Provenance/fidelity: web/frontend/src/app/scenarios/city-scenarios.ts and each public/scenarios/<id>/README.md.

---

Tracked in docs/BACKLOG.md as VIS-1.