Microsoft Releases Virtual Earth 3D Beta 1.1
November 18, 2006 2 Comments
Looks like Virtual Earth 3D has been updated to 1.1. I’ve seen a couple of posts in Technorati, but none seem to identify what exactly has changed. I wonder if this release fixes the problem installing Virtual Earth 3D in non-english locales. It looks like performance has been improved, but that could just be Saturday morning light traffic on Microsoft’s servers. I’m heading out to take my son to the Arizona Science Center which I think was pretty interesting to find directions for now that Virtual Earth supports both Bird’s Eye View and 3D View.
UPDATE 1 - The Virtual Earth blog says that the 1.1 update fixes the international issue. What is even better news is that you don’t even need to download the 1.1 version. It automatically updates which is much nicer than the Google Earth method of having to check daily for updates (or just let Frank do that for you). I was talking to someone over MSN Messenger and they were wondering how you know what version of Virtual Earth 3D you are running. I’m not sure it is an issue. I think it is always the latest version running.
About James Fee
Does anybody know more about the process used to create the 3D buildings in Virtual Earth? More specifically, was LIDAR data used or are the buildings created manually? Also, did they use the Pictometry data to create the textures?
Well, if you look at the two images. The buildings exterior don’t look the same, so they didn’t use Pictometry imagery there. I don’t think any Pictometry imagery has been used to paint the 3D buildings. At least from what I’ve seen and read.
IIRR, the buildings came from one of the companys Microsoft bought, Vexcel(sp?). And I thought the images to paint the 3D buildings were done by them.
KoS