Tag: virtual earth

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Driving Directions using Virtual Earth

Link – Driving Directions using Virtual Earth

I just saw this very cool Virtual Earth application appear in my PubSub Virtual Earth feed. According to the programmers blog:

This demo demonstrates how to leverage the MapPoint Web Service (MWS) in order to do driving directions using the current version of VE. The upcoming version of VE will have driving directions built in but meanwhile you can use this application to get routes using the current version

Pretty cool way to fix a problem with Virtual Earth using another Microsoft product. He uses an asp.NET page talks to the MWS that returns XML that is then parsed by the JavaScript using XMLHttpRequest. That my friends is classic AJAX. It works pretty well and beyond the GUI problems that I think Virtual Earth has, this is a cool mashup.

Virtual earth directions

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Virtual Earth Mobile

Link – Virtual Earth Mobile

Looking for a client application that runs on your Windows Mobile PDA that interacts with Virtual Earth? Well it looks like one is now available on Via Virtual Earth’s site gallery.

Features include browsing VE road and aerial maps, address and place finding, yellow page searching, GPS support, thumbstick navigation, and integration with Pocket Outlook for finding contacts! Best of all, VEMobile features a cache of previously viewed maps, greatly improving performance and providing an offline experience.

Also included is the Visual Studio project files so you can probably hack your own version quite easily. I’ve sworn off Pocket PCs, but I’ll be firing up my old Dell Axim tonight and see how this works.

Vemobile

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Virtual Earth + Shapefile Reader + MSN Messenger

I was just thinking about a couple things today while watching my laptop struggle to execute Kriging.

How cool would it be if someone took the Virtual Earth Shapefile Reader and mashed it up with the MSN Messenger Virtual Earth plugin? Then anyone could send a shapefile to anyone else via an instant message and have it already viewable inside a small browser window. Sounds cool to me. ESRI’s GeoChat seems to be similar to this, but I believe that one requires ArcGIS to work.

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Virtual Earth + Shapefile Reader + MSN Messenger

I was just thinking about a couple things today while watching my laptop struggle to execute Kriging.

How cool would it be if someone took the Virtual Earth Shapefile Reader and mashed it up with the MSN Messenger Virtual Earth plugin? Then anyone could send a shapefile to anyone else via an instant message and have it already viewable inside a small browser window. Sounds cool to me. ESRI’s GeoChat seems to be similar to this, but I believe that one requires ArcGIS to work.

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Putting Shapefies into Virtual Earth

Link – Virtual Earth Shapefile Viewer – via Virtual Earth Blog

Interesting and it works pretty well. Upload any shapefile to the Internet and then just paste the URL into the form and submit. There isn’t any description yet on how this is done or what you need to do to your shapefiles to get them ready to inclusion into Virtual Earth, but it is impressive non the less. Hover over the centroid to get a pop-up id of each record. The GIS community has pretty much ignored Virtual Earth since day one, but maybe this is the start of something new.

Ve shapefile

Update – Brian Flood post the following in the comments.

pretty slick. for the record:

  1. background transfer of XML encoded point,polyline,polygon shapefile data. I’m not sure if its GML or just some quick and dirty xml
  2. javascript (js) parses the xml and either uses a custom class MPolyline to create VML (IE only) for polylines/polygons. For points, it just uses the VE AddPin method. Translation between the XML coords to map coords is handled with VE GetX()/GetY() methods
  3. local javascript from the site adds prototype handlers to the main VE_MapControl that handle the VML placed on top of it
  4. Looks like some symbology is randomly generated.

nice work, whoever they are 😉

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Flash vs Ajax in Online Maps

Michael Quetel was nice enough to email me a link to Flash Earth which uses flash to interface with Google Maps and Virtual Earth. I had seen this when it first came out but must have misplaced the link as I never mentioned it on this blog. What I like about it is how easy it is to navigate and manipulate the layers. There are many Flash based sites out there that are such a hassle, but when used correctly Flash is a great tool. Flash Earth is so simple that it works and that is all you can ask in a web based application.

Flash earth

I know ESRI demoed a Flash based viewer for ArcWeb 2005 at the User Conference that was quite impressive. I’m not sure what their other plans for Flash is/are, but could we be seeing Flash become a competitor for AJAX based mapping sites. I’m never big fan of requiring plugins to run content, but I think we can all assume that almost 100% of browsers have Flash installed.

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MSN Virtual Earth SDK is available

Link – MSN Virtual Earth SDK is live!

After all that waiting I feel no urge to download.

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More Virtual Earth Information

Link – Virtual Earth – Now available for Commercial Use

First and foremost, VE is now available for commercial use. The nitty-gritty details are available from the virtual earth developer site (www.viavirtualearth.com) but, in essence, if you leave the What and Where fields visible, you can use the control provided for a commercial site for free. In Jan 2006, there will be an option to pay for use and remove those controls. Steve’s working on a demo site for this technology called www.MyFavouritePlaceOnEarth.com – catchy huh? It’s not live yet, but when it is, it’ll allow you to mark a spot anywhere on the earth (or, more accurately at the moment, anywhere in the continental US) as a significant site” and decorate it with the metadata to say why.

Andrew Coates updates us on some information from the Microsoft PDC. Can someone explain to me how the 45 degree angle on satellite/aerial imagery is of any value to web users? Microsoft keeps mentioning it like is will change the way we view maps, but I’m just left trying to figure out how.

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Create a Virtual Earth app, win $1,000

Link – Virtual Earth Competition

Show off your creativity, sharpen your coding skills and you could win $1000! Enter the Virtual Earth contest by developing your own “map app” using the Virtual Earth JScript map control and API. Then submit your entry before October 14, 2005. The prizes are: Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS for the first 25 entries received, $1000 cash for the best entry, in the opinion of our judges

I wonder if I should send in my Virtual Earth “app”? Hmm, might lose out on some of that “sexy” required component.

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Create a Virtual Earth app, win $1,000

Link – Virtual Earth Competition

Show off your creativity, sharpen your coding skills and you could win $1000! Enter the Virtual Earth contest by developing your own “map app” using the Virtual Earth JScript map control and API. Then submit your entry before October 14, 2005. The prizes are: Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS for the first 25 entries received, $1000 cash for the best entry, in the opinion of our judges

I wonder if I should send in my Virtual Earth “app”? Hmm, might lose out on some of that “sexy” required component.