Nuno Filipe Godinho : Virtual Earth

Virtual Earth version 6.2 Release

NunoGodinho — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:09:23 GMT

There’s already online the new 6.2 release of the Virtual Earth that has some awesome new features that will be briefly described here:

First release of the Virtual Earth Web Services, that will allow developers to use Virtual Earth features by using only the Web Services. Can be thought as an alternative to the Map Point Web Service. The features made available by the Web Service are:

Imagery Metadata – Information about the map tiles that are served.
Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding – Allows developers to request the Geocode based on an address
Static Map Generation – Provides the capability of developing our own map because it provides access to all the tiles and data used by Virtual Earth.
Search – Allows developers to provide access to search option about where and what on Virtual Earth.
Routing – Provides access to calculate routes by using the Service
One-click Directions – Provides one-click directions without having to provide the start point.

International Reverse Geocoding – this was an important because it improved the geocoding not only in the US but also in other countries.
- Rooftop geocoding for something like 85 million locations
- Improved the near matched – The interest point search in the nearby areas were improved.
Maps for Mobile Devices – by using the Virtual Earth Web Services will be easy to develop high performance maps applications for mobile devices.
Localized Maps – A major improvement because now we can see the Map information in several languages.
Localized Directions - A major improvement because now we can see the directions in several languages. Something like 15 languages.
Imagery Metadata – Important because now we can have information about when the information was updated.
3D Import capabilities – Improvements in the process of custom 3D elements import.
3D Imagery – Higher quality in 3D views.
Pushpin clustering – Allows to change the pushpin clustering to custom ones.
Weather Integration – The 3D view now has the weather information, by having clouds in case of a cloudy weather, and without clouds in case of sunny sky. Doesn’t support for now: Rain, Snow.

For more information check the official announcement from Mark Brown and Chris Pendleton, and also a Technical WebCast by Mark Brown.

Photosynth and Virtual Earth

NunoGodinho — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:46:42 GMT

The PhotoSynth project is getting a lot more interesting and a consumer versions is already available and this will allow us to place our own images in a way that see can “travel to places as if we were there” and get a 360º view that is generated with the photos submitted by the users. This seems to me a very good idea and I thought that I would like to see this integrated with Virtual Earth and that’s what I did and made available here (The pins mark the places where photosynth information exists, and by placing the mouse on top of them will allow you to see the photosynth elements) in order to get to know what we can expect in a while. Of course this is a mashup now, but a huge power will came with the integration of both, don’t you agree?

Training for ASP.NET Virtual Earth Control

NunoGodinho — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:24:35 GMT

For all of those that develop or would like to develop ASP.NET solutions with integration of Virtual Earth using the new ASP.NET control here is the link for a very interesting series of videos and samples about how to use the ASP.NET Virtual Earth control.

Don’t miss this fabulous opportunity to know more about this control that brings a easy way to develop ASP.NET solutions with integration of Virtual Earth.

Import 3D Objects into Virtual Earth

NunoGodinho — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:38:08 GMT

With the aquisition of Caligari by Microsoft in February 2008, it was made available a free tool, named TrueSpace that was placed for download completely for free. This will allow the development of solutions using Virtual Earth in his 3D version. This was without any doubt one of the greater drawbacks of developing with Virtual Earth, but now this is all solved as Chris Pendleton the Virtual Earth Team Evangelist announced on his blog and were he explains how to do each of the steps. have fun with this new and very interesting feature made available for Virtual Earth.

Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control Released

NunoGodinho — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:04:43 GMT

As I said some while ago, there are several projects running related with Virtual Earth and one of them is the generation of a Server Control for ASP.NET that will allow us to develop solution and at the same time take some of the complexity of using Virtual Earth, and so here's the announcement that this control is made available as part of the Windows Live Tools July Refresh and you can even watch a video related to this subject on Channel 9 with Mark Brown that is a member of the Virtual Earth Team, where he talks about all the elements that were made available with this control.

One other very interesting project that is being developed is the Virtual Earth control for Silverlight and that you can see some of the results here. This project is named Deep Earth and is hosted on CodePlex and for now there's no release made available, but keep looking. For those of you that would like to use Virtual Earth with Silverlight you can use the codeplex project named Views that as even a video on Channel 9 that explains it's usage.

So good luck with your developments using Virtual Earth.

Virtual Earth Control for ASP.NET

NunoGodinho — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:27:00 GMT

The Virtual Earth Control for ASP.NET will be made available with the July CTP of Windows Live Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and so keep in touch for news on the dev.live.com/tools site.