Mark Brown's Web Platform Blog : 3D

Announcing: Virtual Earth 6.2 and Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0

mjbrown — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:38:30 GMT

Well here it is everybody. The next version of Virtual Earth is out. Not only that but we now have our 1.0 version of the Virtual Earth Web Services here live as well. Let’s dig in to some of the features in this release.

Maps for Mobile Devices. Develop mobile applications with rich imagery optimized specifically for mobile devices, including the iPhone. The new mobile-optimized features are supported in the new Virtual Earth Web Services.
Bird’s Eye Views and Bird’s Eye Hybrid. Exclusive to Microsoft, these unique views of real-world locations provide insight into “what it’s like there.” Bird’s eye hybrid adds street names to the bird’s eye maps to provide end users better visual context and orientation.
Aerial Imagery. Leverage the impact of high-resolution aerial images from leading imagery providers.
3D Imagery. Create more realistic 3D views of buildings and landscapes, featuring denser city models.
Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding. Get the most accurate locations around the world through integration of multiple geocoders and datasets with MapView, Reverse IP, and Culture to provide the most relevant and accurate results. And find the closest street address based only on latitude and longitude coordinates from a GPS or other geospatial device.
International Geocoding. Your customers can now find international addresses with reverse geocoding, available anywhere Virtual Earth has routing.
Localized Directions. Get localized driving or walking directions in 15 languages.
Localized Maps. Create better connections with your global customers. Provide localized maps in U.S. English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian in Western Europe.
Extended International Parsing Capabilities. Users will experience better match rates for addresses in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
Expanded Number of Rooftop Views. Provide more detailed maps to help users find locations with rooftop accuracy. Virtual Earth now offers 85 million unique addresses—more than 70 percent of all rooftops in the U.S.
Near-Matching Capabilities. using alternate and similar spellings, resulting in a more relevant search experience.
Imagery Metadata. Users can now find out the relative age of a given aerial image. This level of detail will help them assess if the imagery is relevant to their needs.
New Virtual Earth Web Services. Developers can now take advantage of the new Virtual Earth Web Services API, which offers static map images (.gif, .jpeg, and .png), direct map tile access, one-box search functionality, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and routing.
One-Click Directions. From your Virtual Earth Web application, allow your customers to get directions in one click, choosing from route options by shortest time, shortest distance, or traffic flow. With one-click directions, users instantly get directions without having to enter a starting address.
Shapes and Shape Layers. Customize and modify pushpins, polylines and polygons, line colors and widths, and transparencies of shapes, as well as add custom icons.
Pushpin Clustering. Provide customers the ability to zoom in on a map to better visualize a cluster of points. When many locations exist in a dense area, the pushpins can be clustered or hidden from view at smaller zoom levels.
Landmark-Based Routing. Provide customers in the U.S. and Canada with turn-by-turn maps that feature such familiar landmarks as gas stations and fast-food restaurants by name.
Driving Directions with Traffic-Based Routing. Provide optimized driving directions with step-by-step instructions.
Walking Directions. When traveling on foot, users can now find the most direct route to walk to their destination, ignoring one-way streets, medians, and other detours that pertain to motor vehicles.
Multipoint Routing. Optimize travel schedules and improve driver efficiency by implementing the Virtual Earth trip planner and multipoint routing.
Traffic Reports. Avoid time-consuming traffic jams by using traffic reports that overlay the Virtual Earth map with color-coded traffic flow visuals above the roads that they correspond to. NOTE: These traffic overlays are available to licensed customers that implement the client token authentication infrastructure.
GeoRSS Feeds. Import shapes, pushpins, and polylines, with GeoRSS feeds, the de facto standard for geographically encoded objects.
Weather Integration. With 3D view, get near real-time weather and cloud formation data.

Get more information:

We have two webcasts coming up next week for you to learn more and get started.

See Chris Pendleton’s Blog Post on his Launch Webcast on October 2nd at 9AM.
Mark Brown’s Blog Post for his Technical Webcast the next day on October 3rd at 10am.

Finally, if you haven’t already get out to http://dev.live.com/virtualearth and check out our updated Interactive SDK and Virtual Earth Web Services SDK. Plus we’re also going to be publishing a bunch more content out on this portal including a whole new round of white papers and other community created content. There’s tons of more options now for building your applications with Virtual Earth so this site should be your one-stop shop for everything Virtual Earth related.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth

Tech Ed Interview with Carl Franklin

mjbrown — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:15:46 GMT

Hey everyone. Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. Been a little crazy for me lately getting everything ramped up for our upcoming release of Virtual Earth which is due here very very soon.

When we were all at Tech Ed North America in Orlando, FL this past June I sat down with Angus Logan, Dr. Neil and Carl Franklin of .NET Rocks! fame for a little interview. We covered a bunch of stuff including our upcoming Virtual Earth release which will feature v1 of our Virtual Earth Web Services. Our recent CTP release of the Virtual Earth ASP.NET control, our UltraCam, 3D models as well as a bunch of other Windows Live Platform services including Messenger, Silverlight Streaming, etc.

We also go into excruciating detail into the definition, exploration and proper usage of the word, “Chuffed”.

Enjoy !!!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth,Windows Live,TechEd,UltraCam

Add your own 3D models to Virtual Earth

mjbrown — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:00:43 GMT

Well we've finally done it! We now have a way for you to create or import your own models and put them into Virtual Earth using truSpace which comes from Caligari who we brought into Microsoft not too long ago. Not only that but you can get truSpace for FREE. You can also import models you have already from many of the popular 3D modeling tools into truSpace and then upload them right into Virtual Earth. So get it for FREE today.

Chris Pendleton has all the details. This is a long post but includes step-by-step instructions on how to load your 3D models into Virtual Earth so it's worth a read and also includes a great video showing how you could use truSpace to create a virtual retail environment. --Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth,3D,Caligari,truSpace

BAH, What a Wasted Day

mjbrown — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:23:09 GMT

Today’s been a tough one for me. To begin I was having issues with my normal laptop, a severely underpowered Sony VAIO that I’ve had for about three years. It’s never liked Vista and to be sure Vista has hated it right back. Still it is small, weighing less that four pounds and most often runs Office and a browser just fine. Good enough for non-dev work. Today that machine started acting up because the SMS client form our corporate machines wanted to install a Vista update that was already on the machine. Problem there is the install wasn’t smart enough to recognize that. Normally that isn’t a problem but this update was mandatory and the SMS Client is smart enough to shut your port down if it thinks you haven't installed it so I had to call our support guys to sort it out. Total time spent with IT guy on the phone? 1.5 hours. Total productivity during that time? 0.0 hours.

After that I needed to get an audio plug in for my copy of Sony Vegas Studio Platinum, the Noise Reduction one. Making videos I realized quickly that this is a MUST HAVE because everywhere I record there is background noise and it annoys the hell out of me. To be sure I ordered the right thing I called Sony and they said,

<typical stoner dude voice> “uh, actually you need to upgrade to Vegas Pro from, uh, Platinum. uh, yeah, that thing won’t work. Vegas Pro has what you need bra”</typical stoner dude voice>.

"mkay" I said, "I’ll go online and buy that one".

Next I go online and try to purchase it but for some reason their website isn’t processing orders so I call back and order it from another person, this time thankfully, no stoner voice. They process the order and email me the download URL and keys. I install it and of course there is no Noise Reduction plug-in to be found. I call back and they say, again no stoner voice, “Yeah, I'm not sure why someone would tell you that. What was his name?" "I don't remember" I said, "but I'll bet he's in the parking lot right now breaking the law". "Um, yes sir. Actually what you need to do is purchase Sound Forge which has the plug-ins and then you can use them directly from Vegas Platinum” "Great!" I say. "Cancel my order. I’ll order Sound Forge instead". Total time talking to Jeff Spicoli and friends, 2.5 hours. Total productivity during that time? 0.0 hours.

Finally, I’ve been trying for three days to get a very fresh build of SQL Server Spatial installed on my demo laptop. I'm giving a presentation with Ed Katibah on Virtual Earth and SQL Spatial at the GeoWeb conference next week in Vancouver, BC. Anyhoo, this laptop, unlike my Sony VAIO is a 13 pound, 64-bit brick house of a machine. I got the pre-reqs installed and then reboot, start Setup again and ZIP, I got nothing. With the help of some product team guys we figured out that my machine was a piece of toast. Unfortunately that’s what happens with demo machines, they sometimes get fried with all the pre-release stuff many of us run to do our jobs. So now as the crowning achievement of my lack of productivity today I'm flattening the entire thing and rebuilding it from scratch. Total time dorking with this machine for the last three days? Hmm, roughly 5.893 hours. Total productivity during that time? 0.0 hours.

I have to say that it's not all bad today however. My first video for Behind the Maps is doing really well with just over 38,000 viewings since I released it a week ago Saturday. I am currently working out the details for my next video where I go up and fly with this thing. There is apparently some cool technology that coordinates the plane and the camera and some interesting operational details too about how we gather images that applies to the incredible 3D work you see in Virtual Earth today. Stay tuned.

Virtual Earth makes golfing more enjoyable

mjbrown — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:59:49 GMT

My friend Jerry over on the Virtual Earth 3D team turned me on to a company called, Terra Imaging who makes a product called, 3D Golf Course. They just finished doing the Torrey Pines course in La Jolla, CA where Tiger just won his 14th major championship. Here’s an interview they did on the local NBC affiliate. Their software is installed and used on golf carts to help golfers navigate the course. Here’s some screen shots. This thing is really cool.

This is the main screen you see while driving down the fairway trying to find your ball.

This is a player information screen to see your player information. Notice too that while you’re entering in your name you can watch the stock market.

Here on this screen you can see the player scorecard.

I love this screen where you can order food from your cart. Think I’ll order the Bunker Burger with a side of Flop Shot Fries and a Mulligan Milkshake. Mmmmmm….

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth,3D

Miami now on Virtual Earth 3D 2.0

mjbrown — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:13:35 GMT

Our Virtual Earth 3D Integration Team Blog has the scoop on Miami released our new 3D technology which is completely automated in a data center completely powered by wind. The area modeled using our new 3D technology covers the entire downtown Miami area with over 46000 buildings and hundreds of thousands of trees. I’m betting a bunch of them are palm trees but that’s just a guess.

Check it out. It’s simply beautiful.

UPDATE: Chris Pendleton tells me that we also have Seattle, WA and Vienna Austria up now as well along with a TON of new ortho and oblique imagery. 69.2TB worth. Holy smokes.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth

State & Local Governments Getting Jiggy with Virtual Earth

mjbrown — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:25:26 GMT

State and Local Governments love mapping stuff. They also create really cool looking websites that their citizens find really useful. Here's a list of some State and Local Governments that are using Virtual Earth and what they are doing with it. To quote my spiritual advisor: actor, singer, dancer, spiritual lama, Will Smith, these SLG's are "Getting Jiggy Wit It".

The Texas Department of Transportation built a really cool site packed full of information. This thing shows EVERYTHING including traffic cameras and even the highway message signs that gives drivers up to date information about road conditions, closures, lane restrictions, etc. They even have the road conditions frequency you tune in on your radio that you can hover over the radio tower and get the information going out over the airwaves.

The Ohio Department of Transportation built a really great looking site. They load the map empty and put a menu on the side where you can optionally select things you want to see and get more information about. I have to say their designers did a really great job with this site. It has a nice clean look to it.

In the Puget Sound region of Washington State, the eCityGov Alliance built an application where users can search, locate, and visualize regional parks and recreational resources. Here's a look at downtown Kirkland, WA. They did a great job. At the upper right corner you can view it near full screen and they took the legend div and floated it as a transparent div in the window. Cool stuff. The funny thing is that the push pins they used look really familiar. I wonder where I've seen those before. Hmm....

The City of Miami has done an incredible implementation of Virtual Earth. They are using it for their zoning and permitting with extensive use of polygons. They even use Virtual Earth 3D to show zoning and property information. That's cool and I'll bet property developers love this feature.

Well there are tons more but that should give you a good idea of how State and Local Governments are doing great work to bring rich and interactive services to their citizens. If you know of others doing similar work for their citizens post it up here. I'd love to see them.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth

Turning on Inertia in Virtual Earth 3D

mjbrown — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:27:16 GMT

So the other day I was following an email thread on a discussion forum for Virtual Earth internally here at Microsoft and someone says, "if only VE clients had “inertia” like Google Earth..." and someone writes back. "Inertia is there, it's just turned off by default" WHA??? How'd that get in there? I wasn't alone in my surprise it seems as others as well didn't know that either. So I guess we snuck it in there. Anyway, if you want to turn it on here's how you do it.

Open up Virtual Earth and turn on 3D mode.

Then click on the Options button. This thing ->

Next click on 3D settings.

Then click on the Preferences tab and then click on the checkbox in the Mouse preferences section.

And THAT'S IT. Have fun flying around in 3D with Inertia.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earthr,3D,Live Maps