September 2007 - Bing Maps Blog

1. 

   Locking a Virtual Earth Map

   09/28/07 by Chris Pendleton | 2 Replies |

   There may be times when you don't want to have a draggable map. Oh, yes all the flexibility of draggable maps makes AJAX and Virtual Earth so much fun! And, knowing you maybe be wreaking havoc on the image tile servers is so stimulating. Plus, with AJAX, Microsoft has to deal with all the throughput to the client and not your web servers - yay! However, if you do want to lock a map you can do so in one of two ways. 1. If you know you want a locked map when you load a Virtual Earth map you can simply pass in "true" for the Boolean parameter of the map.LoadMap() method. VEMap.LoadMap(VELatLong, zoom, style, fixed , mode, showSwitch); 2. Sometimes, you may want a map to be draggable but then lock...
2. 

   Public Sector Virtual Earth Road Show

   09/28/07 by Chris Pendleton | 0 Replies |

   The US Public Sector DPE Team, in partnership with the Public Sector Virtual Earth & Vexcel Teams, is excited to announce the Virtual Earth Road Show! Event Date & Location: Date & Time Location Registration Link October 3, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM Denver, CO http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352189&Culture=en-US October 5, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM Sacramento, CA http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352192&Culture=en-US October 23, 2007 9:00 AM – 15:30PM Reston, VA http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032352194&Culture=en-US About the Event We invite you to join us for a day of technical sessions...
3. 

   FedEx Integrates Virtual Earth

   09/26/07 by Chris Pendleton | 5 Replies |

   Federal Express has launched their new drop box locator service using Virtual Earth. Search for the nearest drop boxes and you'll get a resulting list of locations. Near the top of the result list is a "View Area Map" link which opens up a div containing a Virtual Earth map plotting each of the drop box locations and a legend. You can also check or uncheck different types of results such as "FedEx Staffed," "Self-Service," and "FedEx Authorized Ship Center." You can then update the results for the list and the map. Each location on the map contains a popup with the location name and address. From the list of results you can also link off to a page with a map and driving directions. Pretty nice...
4. 

   New Imagery and 3D Models

   09/26/07 by Chris Pendleton | 1 Replies |

   More, more, more - 10TB more...... New / Updated cities in 3D Augusta, GA Denver, CO Avondale, AZ Gilbert, AZ Glendale, AZ Mesa, AZ Peoria, AZ Phoenix, AZ Tempe, AZ Tuscon, AZ Fort Worth (West), TX Chicago, IL Coral Springs, FL, Nashville Opry, TN New / Update Oblique Imagery (Bird's Eye) New York / Newark, NY/NJ Los Angeles / Long Beach / Huntington Beach, CA Chicago, IL Philadelphia, PA Phoenix, AZ San Diego / Oceanside, CA San Francisco, CA San Jose, CA Miami, FL Boston, MA Seattle, WA Houston, TX Denver, CO Las Vegas, NV Portland, OR Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN Ft. Worth, TX Sacramento, CA Atlanta, GA Detroit, MI Baltimore, MD Austin, TX Jacksonville, FL Indianapolis, IN Tampa, FL St. Petersburg...
5. 

   Environmental Protection Agency & Virtual Earth

   09/14/07 by Chris Pendleton | 2 Replies |

   The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has licensed the Microsoft ® Virtual Earth™ platform on which to develop its mission-critical geospatial and mapping applications. The commitment to Virtual Earth will improve data sharing, analysis and insight for partner agencies, citizens and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on topics ranging from superfund sites and oil spills to waterways and the quality of beach water. Read the full press release here . Some additional details about the relationship can be seen on the video hosted on Windows Live SkyDrive . Click the "Public" icon below to view it. CP
6. 

   Marriott Integrates Virtual Earth to Find Hotels

   09/13/07 by Chris Pendleton | 0 Replies |

   Today, Marriott replaced their MapPoint Web Service maps with Virtual Earth maps. The implementation is pretty straightforward in that you search for a hotel and get results and an overview map with locations pushpinned onto the map.Each pin has a popup with contact information and a link to their reservation system. You can also click on an individual location to see a map of a single location. The benefits are obvious - aerial photography around a hotel, bird's eye imagery to get high result shots of the area, draggable maps. Nice to see an upgrade. I have a couple complaints. I'd like to see the map bigger. When I switch to bird's eye I get hardly any real estate to navigate the area. Finally...
7. 

   Virtual Earth Version 5 SDK in Japanese

   09/11/07 by Chris Pendleton | 1 Replies |

   Since we have Virtual Earth localized in Japanese and have good imagery and street data in Japan, we figured maybe it would be a good idea to convert the Virtual Earth SDK to Japanese too for developers who prefer the local script. Using the localized version of the Virtual Earth map control is pretty straightforward - you just need to add a parameter for the local language when you reference the map control as such: http://dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=5 &mkt=ja-jp Currently, only Japanese is supported in addition to US English. CP
8. 

   Weather Central and Virtual Earth

   09/08/07 by Chris Pendleton | 5 Replies |

   Weather Central recently launched their new broadcast platform using Virtual Earth . This is awesome for broadcasters who now have another option to visualize their news stories on maps, aerial photos and 3D. It took me a while to get a copy of this video, but it's their promotional video they showed at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas this year. It was running non-stop in their booth. If you attended my session at Where 2.0 (yes, the late night, beer drinking session) I played the video and stunned you all. Well, now the rest of the world can see some examples of just how cool Virtual Earth CAN integrate into your broadcasts! Video: Weather Central Featuring Virtual...
9. 

   How To: Skipping Zoom Levels in Virtual Earth

   09/07/07 by Chris Pendleton | 0 Replies |

   One of my well respected customers asked me today if we would support the ability to change the way a double click action took place on the map. Specifically, they wanted the ability to double-click on the map and not just zoom in one level, but two or even three. How can this be done? Well, it's supported today - you just need to do a bit of work. :) Here's the thought process: When a user double-clicks on the map, you'll want to capture the double-click event. When I say capture, I mean you have the ability to tell the Virtual Earth map control, "When someone double-clicks the map, don't do what you normally do! I want to do something different." So, once you've captured the double-click event...
10. 

    Additional Virtual Earth Blog

    09/07/07 by Chris Pendleton | 1 Replies |

    Johannes Kebeck is a Technology Specialist on the Virtual Earth Sales Team. Besides being an all around studd, he now has a very developer-focused blog about building applications with Virtual Earth. Johannes has been helping our enterprise customers build out custom applications using MapPoint 200x , MapPoint Web Service and Virtual Earth for a few years and I've had the pleasure of working with him for almost two of them. You'll find very pertinent information on his blog when it comes to diving deep into Virtual Earth integration - something we're all excited about. So, welcome to the blogosphere, Johannes! CP
11. 

    InmanTV Interview

    09/07/07 by Chris Pendleton | 1 Replies |

    Hey, that's me ! In early August I was asked to interview with Jessica Swesey from Inman to talk about Virtual Earth at the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference In San Francisco . Apparently, the video was just published and was featured in the most recent Inman newsletter. You can see the interview on InmanTV.com. I find the conference in general to be very beneficial to those in the the Real Estate world - especially the San Francisco conf. There's also a confererence in New York in the winter . New York was decent last year, but it seems the major focus on resources and attendance is at the San Francisco show. I'm not sure what our involvement will be with regards to the New York show, but...