We are in a similar boat.

I can’t at will persist an image in my mind (to a decent extend), but my mind can slap together related images in quick succession, which can serve well enough to rotate things in my mind.

Once I had a couple of lucid dreams though, it became clear that my mind can absolutely show me very vivid scenes.

The fidelity is sadly not there when I try to recall it.

I also think I’ve maybe gotten better at visualizing over time, but the improvements are rather gradual.