How the Rating System Works

The PG Hangar 15-point scoring system is designed to show how realistic, enjoyable and useful a photogrammetry city feels inside Microsoft Flight Simulator. It is not just about how pretty the skyline looks from a screenshot — it is about how well the whole area works as a place to fly.

15/15Gold Standard PG

13–14/15Strongly Recommended Areas

7–12/15Mixed Quality or Limited Value

What I Look For

Each city is judged as a complete flying area. I look at the quality of the photogrammetry, the shape and texture of buildings, how roads and rivers behave, how wide the coverage is, and whether there are enough interesting places to make the city worth exploring.

Visual Fidelity

Crisp textures, believable buildings and clean geometry score higher than soft, melted or badly warped areas.

Infrastructure

Roads, rivers, bridges, ports and railways should look clean and structural rather than blocky, broken or distorted.

Coverage Area

A wider, more complete PG area with good blending into the surrounding scenery usually gives better exploration value.

Points of Interest

Diverse places such as downtown areas, stadiums, bridges, ports, industrial estates, coastlines and accurate airfields all help.

Best Viewed from the Air

As with any photogrammetry in the sim, it is usually best viewed from altitude. Around 500 ft AGL and above is where most PG cities start to look their best. Don’t expect perfect buildings when flying 50 ft above rooftops — even good photogrammetry can look rough when inspected too closely.

Important note about PG trees: photogrammetry trees have always been one of the weaker parts of PG scenery. Some cities suffer from it far more than others. Unfortunately, until Microsoft and Asobo improve this, we have to work around it. There are, however, some excellent developers, including Bijan Studio, who make add-ons that can help remove or reduce some of these PG tree issues.

Recommended Add-ons Open PG Explorer Suggest a Correction