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Maps Blog — Jun 2008

Jun

20

20 08

Darden Restaurants

It's Friday and a rare sunny, beautiful day in Redmond. I'm feeling good and will be hitting the outdoors as soon as possible - we tend to cut our days short when the sun comes out. Perhaps this is why response times from me are shorter in the summer. Oh, so back to my point, Bahama Breeze is a place I love to eat at outdoors. There's only one near Seattle and it's in Tukwila which is about 25 minutes from Redmond (and Seattle) near the airport. I see it every time I come and go from the SeaTac Airport but it's just not Caribbean enough in Seattle for me to frequently get in the mood....until today. And, now I can use the Bahama Breeze store locator powered by Virtual Earth. In fact, I can search for Bahama Breeze AND any of the Darden Restaurant Brands . Check out the list of Darden Restaurants below that now use Virtual Earth to help users find their restaurants. Darden is one of those companies that owns all these great places you frequent and don't realize that they are all owned by someone else. Did you know Abercrombie and Fitch owns Hollister ? Qdoba is owned by Jack in the Box ? Capital Grille is one of my favorite restaurants! Their "Wedge" Salad with blue cheese... Read More It's Friday and a rare sunny, beautiful day in Redmond. I'm feeling good and will be hitting the outdoors as soon as possible - we tend to cut our days short when the sun comes out. Perhaps this is why response times from me are shorter in the summer. Oh, so back to my point, Bahama Breeze is a place I love to eat at outdoors. There's only one near Seattle and it's in Tukwila which is about 25 minutes from Redmond (and Seattle) near the airport. I see it every time I come and go from the SeaTac Airport but it's just not Caribbean enough in Seattle for me to frequently get in the mood....until today... Read More
Jun

19

20 08

Photo Geotagging on Surface with Virtual...

Devin Coldewey has a great write-up on some new things the Surface team rolled out including their new SDK. But, more relevantly, a photo geotagging application for Surface using Virtual Earth . Per Coldewey, " Next we saw probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Essentially a geotagged photos viewing application, it had Virtual Earth (very fun to play with, as I did without permission for a bit) and spread across the world were little photos. The photos were placed on the map exactly where they were taken and they could be selected by hand gestures, or filtered by other means so that only, say, panoramic photos taken in 2007 would show up. " That IS pretty cool! CP Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Virtual Earth , Maps , Surface Read More Devin Coldewey has a great write-up on some new things the Surface team rolled out including their new SDK. But, more relevantly, a photo geotagging application for Surface using Virtual Earth . Per Coldewey, " Next we saw probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Essentially a geotagged photos viewing application, it had Virtual Earth (very fun to play with, as I did without permission for a bit) and spread across the world were little photos. The photos were placed on the map exactly where they were taken and they could be selected by hand gestures, or filtered by other... Read More
Jun

19

20 08

Virtual Earth Staging Environment

We've officially launched our staging environment which allow you to access Virtual Earth features without incurring transaction costs for hitting production. Plus, we can stage new features allowing you to new stuff and regression test for backwards compatibility. Here's the official communication from the product group: " Better Reporting for Better Business Intelligence The Microsoft Virtual Earth Customer Identification feature is an important part of the Virtual Earth platform. This feature allows you to access and view reports detailing your application’s platform usage from the Virtual Earth Platform Customer Services site. These reports display information about your Virtual Earth Platform usage, including both MapPoint Web Service transactions and Virtual Earth map control transactions. As a licensed customer, you are required to use this identification feature as part of your service level agreement. It’s a convenient and accurate way to track how your investment is being utilized. Benefits for licensed customers: · Access to transaction reporting · More accurate billing and auditing for customers without an unlimited usage license · Access... Read More We've officially launched our staging environment which allow you to access Virtual Earth features without incurring transaction costs for hitting production. Plus, we can stage new features allowing you to new stuff and regression test for backwards compatibility. Here's the official communication from the product group: " Better Reporting for Better Business Intelligence The Microsoft Virtual Earth Customer Identification feature is an important part of the Virtual Earth platform. This feature allows you to access and view reports detailing your application’s platform usage from the... Read More
Jun

18

20 08

Lots of Virtual Earth and Silverlight Development...

I'm seeing lots of Virtual Earth integration in Silverlight light. And, I have to say I LOVE IT. Today is no exception. IDV Solutions just launched their Silverlight Map Viewer which is their new interface for their Visual Fusion Server product. This is a big move for IDV as most of their stack is Microsoft technology and the Flash interface was one of the remaining artifacts in moving to a complete Microsoft stack. What else? How about Soul Solutions who published Deep Earth on CodePlex ? Deep Earth is an open source community project that combines the interactive experience in Silverlight 2 Deep Zoom with photo tiles from Virtual Earth. This actually featured on Channel 9 - " DeepEarth: Virtual Earth using Silverlight Deep Zoom ." IS Consulting makers of MapDotNet have their own MapDotNet Silverlight interface for Virtual Earth and GIS data, as well. Infusion Development has invested quite a bit of time in Virtual Earth (as you may have noticed in the Virtual Earth Developer Forums ) and has developed a few applications already using Silverlight. I get posed the question all the time, "Chris, when is Microsoft going to release the Microsoft Virtual Earth Silverlight... Read More I'm seeing lots of Virtual Earth integration in Silverlight light. And, I have to say I LOVE IT. Today is no exception. IDV Solutions just launched their Silverlight Map Viewer which is their new interface for their Visual Fusion Server product. This is a big move for IDV as most of their stack is Microsoft technology and the Flash interface was one of the remaining artifacts in moving to a complete Microsoft stack. What else? How about Soul Solutions who published Deep Earth on CodePlex ? Deep Earth is an open source community project that combines the interactive experience in Silverlight 2 Deep... Read More
Jun

17

20 08

Virtual Earth and WPF (Windows Presentation...

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is an incredible new visualization technology from Microsoft and since we are "One Microsoft" with some extremely exciting user experience software coming to the forefront - see Silverlight , Seadragon (aka Deep Zoom) and Surface as examples - Virtual Earth is being the fifth of the beautiful interfaces in our UX arsenal why not marry some of them? Well, I showed Silverlight and Virtual Earth at the MIX conference this year. Well, here's a 3D demonstration put together by Identity Mine for Accruent illustrating exactly why Virtual Earth and WPF can change the way we mine, examine and visualize data. The application illustrates ways of doing what you do today, but in a 3-dimensional presentation. Stepping through the video, you'll see the following on a Virtual Earth map in 3D WPF grace. Plot customers on a map with 3D pins Radius search - visualizing the radius and changing the radius by simply pulling on the band Drive-time Area - a drive time search 10 minutes from the center point of the original radius search Visualizing demographic data on the map with 3D size, shapes and colors Filtering demographics data on the map to change size... Read More Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is an incredible new visualization technology from Microsoft and since we are "One Microsoft" with some extremely exciting user experience software coming to the forefront - see Silverlight , Seadragon (aka Deep Zoom) and Surface as examples - Virtual Earth is being the fifth of the beautiful interfaces in our UX arsenal why not marry some of them? Well, I showed Silverlight and Virtual Earth at the MIX conference this year. Well, here's a 3D demonstration put together by Identity Mine for Accruent illustrating exactly why Virtual Earth and WPF can... Read More
Jun

17

20 08

MSNBC Maps Midwest Floods with Virtual...

MSNBC published a Virtual Earth map highlighting points along the Mississippi River (and one in Michigan) where towns are getting flooded in the Midwest United States. Each point represents a city with flood issues such as Rock Island, Il and hovering over each city the popup provides you with (a) the current river level (near real time), (b) the forecasted maximum level the river reach in the respective city during this storm and (c) the record historical level and the date it was observed. If you can move your mouse fast enough, there are links to news stories and videos on some of the pushpins popups. Most of the towns in Iowa and Illinois show that river levels are near or surpassing record levels set in the past. From what I saw on the news this morning, the towns in the southern states bordering the Mississippi River have somewhat of a river tidal wave coming their way and need to batten down the hatches as the river is gaining strength. Hold tight folks. And after the storm passes, you can always do what Central Florida News 13 did - show the areas as they are today and use Virtual Earth to illustrate what they looked like before the storm. A good use of Virtual Earth imagery... Read More MSNBC published a Virtual Earth map highlighting points along the Mississippi River (and one in Michigan) where towns are getting flooded in the Midwest United States. Each point represents a city with flood issues such as Rock Island, Il and hovering over each city the popup provides you with (a) the current river level (near real time), (b) the forecasted maximum level the river reach in the respective city during this storm and (c) the record historical level and the date it was observed. If you can move your mouse fast enough, there are links to news stories and videos on some of the pushpins... Read More
Jun

16

20 08

Central Florida News 13

Tim Henderson (Virtual Earth Solution Specialist, South East US) sent me this video of a Central Florida News 13 broadcast using Virtual Earth. The video actually uses Live Search Maps and either a camera recording the screen or a scan converter to push the visualization into broadcast. They could alternatively use the map control , but whatever works. :) I'm seeing Virtual Earth popping up more and more in broadcast. You know, the rights to use Virtual Earth in your broadcast are extremely painless so you are running out of reasons not to use Virtual Earth on your broadcast. Give the people the Bird's Eye imagery you know they want! CP Virtual Earth Blog Tags: Hollywood Read More Tim Henderson (Virtual Earth Solution Specialist, South East US) sent me this video of a Central Florida News 13 broadcast using Virtual Earth. The video actually uses Live Search Maps and either a camera recording the screen or a scan converter to push the visualization into broadcast. They could alternatively use the map control , but whatever works. :) I'm seeing Virtual Earth popping up more and more in broadcast. You know, the rights to use Virtual Earth in your broadcast are extremely painless so you are running out of reasons not to use Virtual Earth on your broadcast. Give the people the... Read More
Jun

16

20 08

Tour de Korea - Japan 2008

Virtual Earth Blog Tags: Enterprise/Government Solutions I found the Tour de Korea - Japan 2008 Virtual Earth Mashup on the KGrand blog which actually has quite a few Virtual Earth Mashups for Japan . I wanted to call this one out because of it's timeliness with the race in just a week! The application highlights different points in the race which need to be maneuvered. The screenshot below shows the application in 3D with the Aerial map style enabled. By default, you get 2D roads with custom icons. According to the site: " It is a course chart of international bicycle road racing rally tour de korea japan japan stage done in Yamaga City on Saturday, June 21 and Sunday, the 22nd. The individual time trial is done in the Yamaga City culture sportscenter on the 21st and the Kikuchi castle start and the road racing of the hill goal of the apricot of 178 kilos in the time of surroundings course are done on the 22nd. It actually runs in the course, and the image of which it takes a picture with each point can be seen. " I love to see our Japan maps and data put to good use. CP Read More Virtual Earth Blog Tags: Enterprise/Government Solutions I found the Tour de Korea - Japan 2008 Virtual Earth Mashup on the KGrand blog which actually has quite a few Virtual Earth Mashups for Japan . I wanted to call this one out because of it's timeliness with the race in just a week! The application highlights different points in the race which need to be maneuvered. The screenshot below shows the application in 3D with the Aerial map style enabled. By default, you get 2D roads with custom icons. According to the site: " It is a course chart of international bicycle road racing rally tour... Read More
Jun

13

20 08

Euro 2008 on CCTV

CCTV (China Central Television) is the largest Chinese Broadcasting Company who owns the exclusive Olympics broadcasting rights for China. They just released their first version of Virtual Earth integrated with CCTV Olympics site for Euro Soccer Game 2008 . Within the site you can tour the Euro 2008 places of interest. Going down the navigation the left you can see the countries involved, the cities where the games are played, the stadiums, a scoreboard and video of the games. I think it's funny that they used a Google-ish interface with the buttons for changing map style on the top right, but whatever works! Additionally, you can use the remote control to play video and chat with other users. The chat was moving so fast I couldn't even read it, but I'm guessing that's some robot trying to take down their system. Oh, and clicking the remote's red power button doesn't turn off your monitor it just closes the remote control panel. :) Football (soccer) buffs will greatly enjoy this app, especially if you can read it. CP Read More CCTV (China Central Television) is the largest Chinese Broadcasting Company who owns the exclusive Olympics broadcasting rights for China. They just released their first version of Virtual Earth integrated with CCTV Olympics site for Euro Soccer Game 2008 . Within the site you can tour the Euro 2008 places of interest. Going down the navigation the left you can see the countries involved, the cities where the games are played, the stadiums, a scoreboard and video of the games. I think it's funny that they used a Google-ish interface with the buttons for changing map style on the top right... Read More
Jun

13

20 08

Overcoming Proxy Issues with Microsoft...

Every now and again I get pinged by someone behind a firewall or proxy server that claims they can't install Virtual Earth 3D. I have some solutions that might overcome your problems. There WERE two problems with proxies and VE3D - (1) installing over a proxy and (2) retrieving tiles over a proxy once you had installed it. In the latest build of Virtual Earth 3D, the proxy issues SHOULD BE resolved because we've passed control to the browser. In the former build there were proxy settings in the 3D control. You had to go to the "Options" box, find the hidden tab in the 3D settings and fill in your proxy information but that somewhat limited our reach since most people set their proxy once and forget where the heck it even is to change again! So, whatever your browser proxy settings are these are the proxy settings we now use for installing and retrieving tiles for VE3D. " Yeah, but it still doesn't work for me! " Well, first things first, make sure it's a Windows OS. We don't yet support Mac OS, Linux, Unix (which is where Mac OS comes from, no? ;)) or anything other than Windows. We do support Windows XP and Vista, but with XP there are some additional components... Read More Every now and again I get pinged by someone behind a firewall or proxy server that claims they can't install Virtual Earth 3D. I have some solutions that might overcome your problems. There WERE two problems with proxies and VE3D - (1) installing over a proxy and (2) retrieving tiles over a proxy once you had installed it. In the latest build of Virtual Earth 3D, the proxy issues SHOULD BE resolved because we've passed control to the browser. In the former build there were proxy settings in the 3D control. You had to go to the "Options" box, find the hidden tab in the 3D settings and... Read More