Bing Maps Imagery Release – May 2009 (Introducing Bing Maps World Tour)

May’s imagery update comes with a shiny, new toy to play with (in addition to the 248,000+ sq. kilometers of new imagery). We’ve decided that instead of providing you with some ginormous list of locations and a few snapshots, we’ll provide you with an experience. Check out the new Bing Maps World Tour (hosted on Windows Azure. no less). The Bing Maps World Tour is a rich new way of viewing our imagery updates every month by navigating the respective pins or just watching the slide show take you around the world to explore the new imagery. I’ve provided a detailed description of the application’s features below so you can fully appreciate the experience of exploring our imagery, photography and road data updates.

Bing Maps World Tour

We’ve gone out of our way to further showcase our investments in imagery and photography by building out the Bing Maps World Tour – an application meant to allow for full exploration and appreciation of the data we’re publishing every month on Bing Maps. Here’s a blow by blow of the features in the new application.

Silverlight Interface – Bing Maps World Tour is built with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control (currently in CTP) to take advantage of the robust rendering capabilities within.

Custom Icons – icons representing, Aerial orthos and Bird’s Eye photos.

Tabbed Menu – 3 Tabs to help you navigate the application:

Release Highlights and Info – Provides you with detailed information about the imagery release. There’s a button for each location with information about the region, country, sq. kilometers and the type of imagery released. Additionally, you can see a snippet of information about the imagery release including the date and number of regions included in the release. Finally, you can also see previous imagery updates from prior imagery releases.

 

 

Map Options – Several options to control the experience.

 

 

• Slideshow controls – Fast forward to the next location or rewind to the last location viewed in the slide show. Also, play or pause the slide show.
• Filter Release Data – Filter the imagery by type if you just want to see aerial or Bird’s Eye. You can also filter the data on the map by location (by continent).
• Zoom to World Map – Zooms you all the way out to see the entire Earth.
• Share Map – Provides a URL for the view you are currently looking at with buttons to Send in Email, Blog It, or Copy to Clipboard.
• Show Fullscreen – Blows the map up for a full screen experience.
• Map Style – Change the map style from Aerial with Labels (default) to Aerial or Road.

 

Map Help – Provides you with the pushpin legend .

 

Slide Show – Sit back and watch the slide show as it bounces through each region that has been included in the release. As it zooms down to the respective location, you’ll be provided with the a detailed view of the new imagery, please a popup informing you of the location, the sq. kilometers included in the release and the ability to share or see on Bing Maps. This will take you to the Bing Maps web site. Note that when looking at a location with new Bird’s Eye photography a Bird’s Eye image is embedded into the popup. Eye candy is yummy.

Explore! – Explore the map on your own. Zoom out, zoom in, enjoy multi-image scaling greatness and click on icons to discover the new imagery.

Navigation Bar – A hyped up navigation bar provides for easy zooming and panning to a specific location, but also buttons to rewind, play, pause and fast forward the slideshow.

Okay, and for you hard core fans, here’s the list by country with sq. kilometers:

Inset Map – Using a second instance of the Bing Maps Silverlight Control drawn in an ellipse makes for easily getting your bearings as to where in the world you are.

W/ <3.

CP