By Soul Solutions on
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
 If you’re in London this Thursday you can’t miss Johannes and Simon presenting on Virtual Earth and SQL Server 2008 Spatial. It sounds like an awesome event, I wish was I was there.
Come along to the SQL Usergroup hosted by Microsoft on the 16th April for a great evening focusing on spatial data and how you can integrate virtual earth and SQL Server to do some amazing things. Virtual Earth provides great features for visualising, performing routing and locating places, SQL Server allows for data to be stored, searched together they provide a great solution. To register go to http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/155/Using-Spatial-Data-in-SQL-Server-and-Virtual-Earth-Evening-Event.aspx (If you can’t make the evening we are doing the same thing in the afternoon http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/154/Using-Spatial-Data-in-SQL-Server-and-Virtual-Earth-Afternoon.aspx )
This evening will be hosted by Johannes Kebeck and Simon Sabin
Agenda 18:00 - 18:30 Meet & Greet 18:30 - 18:40 Intro, what’s in the news, Q&A. 18:40 - 19:40 End to End Spatial Data with Johannes Kebeck
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By Soul Solutions on
Monday, 13 April 2009
This is a simple list of the various resources available for your development needs.
Sign up for you developer account here:
https://mappoint-css.live.com/mwssignup
Official Microsoft:
Virtual Earth API on MSDN Virtual Earth Interactive SDK Virtual Earth Forum on MSDN Microsoft MapPoint Web Service API on MSDN Silverlight Control CTP VIRTUAL EARTH SERVICE API TERMS OF USE Geographic Coverage Details Streetside Technology Preview Windows Live Maps for Mobile SQL Server 2008 Spatial Forum Community sites:
Follow me on twitter for latest VE news as it happens: http://twitter.com/virtualearth
Liveside.net - great news and articles about windows live Geoweb Guru - news and in depth Geo Articles MP2K - the magazine for MapPoint Community Projects:
WinForms Control - A must for anyone looking at using VE in a windows forms app. Silverlight Control...
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By Soul Solutions on
Friday, 10 April 2009
Today the Virtual Earth team announced the new version of the 3D control. To install simple goto to http://maps.live.com/?mkt=en-us and click on the 3D button. Checkout New York rendering very quickly with trees and weather! I noticed a new 3D option also “Use ansiotropic filtering”.
The full list of new features for the 3D control from NikolaF (you should subscribe to the VirtualEarth3D blog for everything VE3D):
Initialized event A new event on RenderEngine that simplifies the startup scenario. Check out SimpleForm to see it. Remember that use of this event or FirstFrameRendered is now required!
Anisotropic Filtering Greatly improves the appearance of terrain when at an angle. It's off by default, since there are some graphics cards that don't play nice with it (usually old and rare, but still). You can turn this on through the website in the options box, or you can set it programmatically. See SimpleForm.
Dem Data The ability to supply custom DEM data, and have it automatically stitched into existing data. Previously DEM datasources did not work very well, mostly because we did not automatically stitch. ...
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By Soul Solutions on
Friday, 10 April 2009
Keith posted this awesome Silverlight3 demo showing that although the new Virtual Earth control is Silverlight2 you can happily put this in the newer framework. With this in mind I put together this little sample showing how you can use the new Pixel Shaders to drastically modify the map control. The sample makes use of the http://wpffx.codeplex.com/ project as described by Morten Nielson.
 View Full Album
View the live demo here if you have Silverlight3 running on your test machine:
http://www.soulsolutions.com.au/silverlight/VEPixelShader/
My favourite is the Zoom Blur, it would be interesting to enable this during zoom animation.
Technorati Tags: Virtual Earth,Silverlight,Pixel Shader
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By Soul Solutions on
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
 For Girl Geek Dinner 5 in Brisbane we’re fortunate to have Tracy Whitelaw as our guest speaker who will talk about women in gaming which is very appropriate for our Girl Geek Guitar Hero night! If you haven’t signed up for the event you can register here: http://girlgeekdinnersbrisbane05.eventbrite.com/
 Tracy Whitelaw is a self-confessed geek and gadget girl who creates robot brains in her position as the Chief Knowledge Engineer at artificial intelligence company 'MyCyberTwin'. Based on the Gold Coast, Tracy works in an environment that delivers fully customised personalities and characters to a number of companies and businesses including NASA, AMP, NAB, PBL Media and others.
Holding a BSc(Hons) degree in Behavioural Science, Tracy has long had an interest in the social construction of identity in popular media forms. She specializes in studying trends in society, how individuals act within a social milieu, and in helping MyCyberTwin technology be rich in response to these patterns. She has been involved in online technology for a number of years.
Her particular areas of specialisation are online worlds, gaming, character creation and formation of identity in popular culture. With a passion for emerging technology and how it is used, Tracy enjoys the challenges of creating engaging characters who keep users entertained and informed. She combines this with her interest in video-games and gaming culture, working voluntarily as the PA for a number of female based gaming websites. She writes freelance for a number of online and print sources, primarily...
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By Soul Solutions on
Monday, 6 April 2009
Shown at Mix last month in Chris Pendleton’s introduction to the new CTP Silverlight control this demo adds a set of simple polygons representing most of the countries of the world to the map, colouring them based on their Carbon emissions in 2004, green is comparatively good while red is bad.
View the live demo here.
The data itself comes from a SQL 2008 spatial database, you can setup the data yourself if you like by following the steps outlined in this previous article or simple download the database backup below.
For something a little special and in the spirit of the rich media support of Silverlight if you roll over the USA or Australia the Brush will use a video.
The code is pretty straight forward but their are some tricks in regards to simplifying the geography out of SQL for performance, ripping all the individual polygons out of each country and encoding them into something fast and small to send over the WCF service. The issue is we don’t have any support...
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By Soul Solutions on
Sunday, 5 April 2009
March was a big month for Virtual Earth, if you missed something here is the VE Wrap Up:
Silverlight CTP Released The big news was the release of the Silverlight Virtual Earth control CTP. This is the next generation of mapping for the web and something you simply must consider today for your future applications.
Chris Pendleton’s announcement and photos from Mix Chris Pendleton’s session from Mix (high res WMV is the best). Earthware in the UK have their twitter map and their Mini-Map. Keith Kinnan (who worked on the control) Hello World post. Subscribe to his blog for some awesome samples added daily. Johannes Kebeck (Microsoft): Database Connections with the Virtual Earth Silverlight MapControl CTP Download the control, SDK documentation and view the interactive SDK online (you need to complete the survey and click register) Data Binding with the Virtual Earth Control...
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By Soul Solutions on
Thursday, 2 April 2009
 It’s only 4 weeks till out next Girl Geek Dinner!
Girl Geek Guitar Hero Gaming Night
This month, Microsoft have kindly lent us their office so we're going to something a little different: a night of games! There will be a few games and consoles to choose from.
Why not:
Sharpen up your guitar, drum and singing skills and have a go at Rock Band and or Guitar Hero on Xbox 360 Play some tennis or do some yoga on the Nintendo Wii Or bring along your favourite game to share with others. Who is invited?
If you are a geek and a girl or know of one who is willing to escort you then you are welcome and encouraged to come along. There is a technical focus with the intention of having fun and connecting with other women in IT.
Who pays for dinner?
This month is not sponsored so you will have to pay for your own dinner
Where + When
Date: Thursday 30th April, 2009
Time: 5:30 pm
Where: Microsoft Office, Level 9, 1 Waterfront Place, Brisbane
Technorati Tags: Girl Geek Dinners,Brisbane,WIT,Microsoft,Guitar Hero,Wii
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By Soul Solutions on
Thursday, 2 April 2009
 We’ve been invited back to this year’s Technology Takes You Anywhere event, held on the 6th April. Last year we wore ourselves out showing 100’s of girls how to use an XBox controller to fly around Virtual Earth and find famous landmarks. They seemed to have fun so we thought we’d do something similar this year, inspired by Brian Peak’s demo, and also get them to use the Wii Fit Board and controllers to add some extra fun in the day.
About the Event Technology Takes You Anywhere is a special event aimed at increasing girls interest in technology and their confidence with using it. Through this event girls will be exposed to a range of different technologies. Older girls will also discover the diverse range of challenging and rewarding pathways that exist within the ICT industry.
Girls attending this event will have the opportunity to listen to speakers from a range of fields and on topics from biotechnology to creating programs for mobile phones. They will also experience hands-on workshops and visit MyMultiMedia. MyMultiMedia will include and animated film festival and activities such as robotics, forensic science, interactive whiteboards, music-making and videography as well as web, e-commerce and graphic design.
Technology...
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