Blog List

I know I haven't posted something code related on Virtual Earth in ages, rest assured I've just been very busy.

The 4 green boxes are the screen bounds passed to the server for data in many of my older virtual earth applications and samples, the 2 blue boxes are the standardised bounds I actually send these days.

This is the new JavaScript code I use to get the current screen bounds:

Still addicted to the new Birdseye images for Australia in the latest imagery additions from Microsoft I thought it would be cool to make a PhotoMosaic from the Virtual Earth assets.

(Click to see full resolution using Silverlight Deep Zoom.)

A PhotoMosaic is essentially a Mosaic of photos arranged together to look like another photo from a distance. I remember seeing my first one

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What is better then a few images and links of the new Birdseye for Australia? How about a 5min video exploring some of the cool new images in 3D!

Its been a long time comming for us down under but today four major cities have been given the Virtual Earth Birdseye treatment. Click on the links to be taken to map.live.com and check them out in detail:



Sydney Opera House, NSW

The Gold Coast, Queensland

Hobart, Tasmania

Wollongong, NSWIf you install the 3D plugin, small download, you can navigate these seemlessly. I'll follow up with a little video later today to show you how.

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This example comes from Steve Lombardi's blog post last year and has been updated to the latest version of Virtual Earth at the time of writing. The code and collection was presented at the Museums and the Web conference in Montreal, Canada.

In the space of 10 minutes you can present a custom collection presented on the Virtual Earth platform within your own web site by leveraging http://maps.live.com as your content editor and storage and using the Virtual Earth API. Here we present the simple code to do this and some extra features like a map search, custom numbered icons and an outline text listing with clickable titles.



To begin, navigate to http://maps.live.com. This is Microsoft's consumer mapping site built on top of the Virtual Earth API but with many more features. Here you can sign in using live ID and add pushpins, polylines, polygons and even 3D models to a collection. For example add some pushpins of famous landmarks in your area, add textual description, an image and a link to further information. Now save your collection and make it public. Here is an example of some landmarks around Montreal:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&encType=1&cid=5CB0B41C15FA0196!437

Most of the hard work is now done, you have an interface to create and edit your content and share it with the world via GeoRSS, KML or as a VE collection. We will use the last option for this example. In order to access the VE...

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We're heading off to Montreal this weekend, to attend the Museums and Web Conference.  John has been going for a few years now, usually presenting on content managment, but this year he's presenting a paper: Using the Microsoft Virtual Earth API to provide Geographical Access to Cultural Heritage and doing a half day workshop: Exploring the National Gallery of Australia online database for prints and printmaking spatially.  So I'm going along to help him out a bit with the workshop. I've armed myself with art paper and texters to keep the crowd amused and bring out some creative talent in our group activity.

Workshop Details:

Exploring the National Gallery of Australia online database for prints and printmaking spatially  

Online mapping is hot. The interface of maps provides an engaging mechanism to explore objects spatially, that is, view an object at its location on the earth. This paper explores the practical use of online mapping technologies at to provide an intuitive and engaging experience for the exploration of extensive collections at low cost to the institution. The National Gallery of Australia provides an online database for prints and printmaking in the Australian region – www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au.

9 presentations, 8 cities and 9 giant tennis balls later, we've concluded our series of SQL Spatial and Virtual Earth talks.

There were a few questions that kept occuring around the funding for our "tour".  We paid for all the flights, accommodation and transport ourselves (except for the flights to the Melbourne group..which were kindly funded by the usergroup).

Then the next set of questions were around why did we do it if we didn't get paid for it.  For us, there were a few opportunities. 

• There was the fact we got to see a new new places..like Perth and Adelaide.
• We got to meet lots of people we "talk to" onlink but had never met.
• We got to talk to people about stuff that we find interesting
• We got to meet lots of people passionate about GIS, GML, community etc. When you get to talk to people truly passionate about something, it always makes you feel more energetic!

I was truly amazed by the enthusiasm of some of our attendees.

• People flew in from other cities to see the presentation. Last night, one of the attendee flew from Woolongong to Brisbane to see us.
• People made special efforts to come and see us on Valentine's day :)
• People were really keen to share their experience and knowledge of GIS, GML etc.

I think the tour really strengthened in our minds how much people identify with maps, and that there's a lot of interest out there in what both SQL Spatial and Virtual Earth can do.

It was a really good experience, and we'd like to thank all the usergroup leaders who hosted us. These guys do a truly AMAZING job or organinsing the speakers, rooms, food etc. in their own time, just for the love of it.  My hat goes off to you all!

It will be my first MVP summit next month. The summit is at Microsoft Campus in Redmond Seattle. The event sounds pretty cool with presentations and social activities.

So to contribute I teamed up with the event organisers to create an Attendee Map using Virtual Earth.

http://mvp.soulclients.com/

It is very cool to see how international the event is and just how many community focused people will be there.

Chris Pendleton announced the upcomming release of a Silverlight Virtual Earth Control with Seadragon technology at Mix during his VE presentation.

Check out the presentation, little preview towards the end with integration of other deep zoom images and video.

Also the intellisence project got mention as did my new article on what is new in Virtual Earth

After watching all the cool new stuff in IE8 and excited about the JavaScript performance improvements I thought I would I would install it today. After checking out that most sites built for IE7/FF2 combo rendered fine I flicked over to Virtual Earth and pop - javascript error on the VEAPI - "my market is not supported" .

Interesting the maps.live.com rendered but wasn't really useable - the interactive SDK, the benchmark for all things Virtual Earth failed to render also. Oh well I'll send an email off and see what the deal is. Is this only effecting me as I'm in Australia I wonder?