I’m often asked why Bing bothers with a mapping tool when Google’s is so good. Don’t get me wrong – I downloaded Google Earth when it came out and had a lot of fun flying around the world. As a day-to-day tool though (or even just for fun) I’ve been a fan of Bing (or Live) Maps for years. I found it easier to use, the searching is on-par with Google, and I loved the birds-eye view as it showed me what buildings actually look like and not just the top of them. About a year ago I was reminded how incredible the 3D view actually is – it uses 3d rendering to build models of cities and depth in the terrain. I explored cities like New York, flew through the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls – it was amazing.
Nothing had prepared me though for a demo I saw at TechReady last summer which combined some of my favourite technologies – Bing Maps, Silverlight, Deep Zoom, PhotoSynth and Search. The Bing Maps team have used these technologies together to create an incredible product and even given it a UX polish. I was blown away when I saw it.
The new Bing Maps is now publically available to try for yourself here: www.bing.com/maps/explore/install.aspx
Let’s take a deep dive into some of the new or improved features…
As soon as I search for a place name (I’m using Bath as I went to Uni there and it’s good for examples), I’m given rich search information from Bing - information on the city, the current weather conditions, photographs, local attractions and business etc. Clicking on this information takes me off to relevant web sites as if I’d searched for it directly in Bing.
Clicking on the Map Apps button gives a vast array of plug-ins for my map. I can click on the apps to add information such as traffic info, nearby attractions, restaurants, the front page of local newspapers etc.
The Map Views have always been pretty powerful in Bing Maps. There’s Road, Aerial and Birdseye plus we’re able to turn labels on and off. The new Automatic Map Views feature picks the best view to use for the current zoom level. When far away, we see a satellite image of the Earth with no labels, as we move closer the map changes to a road view, then aerial with labels and eventually a Birdseye view once we’re close enough to the desired location. Of course, as we’re using Silverlight Deep Zoom to render the map images, these transitions are all really smooth and appealing.
The Map type can be selected manually if desired and the zoom level can even easily be set by neighbourhood, city, region, state and world.
One of the coolest features is that PhotoSynth has now been embedded into Bing Maps. Turning on the PhotoSynth Map App positions icons to show where people have uploaded their Synth.
I’ll describe how to create Synths in another blog post but it basically lets you line up a Synth point cloud with an aerial view. Users can click on the Synth and a sexy animation transitions the map view into a normal PhotoSynth browser where they can browse photos in 3d or 2d and see a point cloud.
Here’s an example of a Synth I created of Sham Castle in Bath:
You might recognise this feature as Google Maps has a similar feature. StreetSide lets you click onto a street on a map and view it as if you’re walking along it. For example, I could click into New York City and walk up and down the streets. Silverlight provides some smooth transitions so you keep track of where you are and don’t get confused when moving between pictures.
There are a few features which appear in the classic version of the UK Bing Maps such as London Tube and Ordinance Survey maps. These don’t seem to be in the Silverlight version yet but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future!
Try the new Bing Maps for yourself here: www.bing.com/maps/explore/install.aspx