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Written by Richard Marsden
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Thursday, 08 January 2009 18:49 |
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Virtual Earth is an online mapping platform from Microsoft. Virtual Earth allows an application to display geographic data on imagery provided by Virtual Earth. The SDK includes geocoding, pushpins, shape annotation, and a route determination.
Microsoft's Virtual Earth application is a popular online mapping platform. It directly competes against Google Maps. This competition has resulted in active innovation by both companies, and it is likely that parts of this article will become outdated in the next year. The consumer interface of virtual Earth is marketed by Microsoft as a part of their Live services, and is known as Live Search Maps and Live Local.
Virtual Earth is built on an AJAX model, and the API is typically accessed using Javascript. Microsoft have done a good job of documenting Virtual Earth and have included a useful Interactive SDK that provides demonstration code for various activities.
Virtual Earth image data includes road maps, aerial photographs, birdseye (45deg slant view), and 3d. The 3d imagery includes eleveation and 3d building models, but requires the installation of a 3d control. Virtual Earth has the ability to draw shapes, place pushpins, import KML files, display custom tile overlays, shape layers, routing & directions, points of interest. The Javascript API also supports events and callbacks. Recent additions in Virtual Earth v6.2 include the ability to import custom 3d models, and pushpin clustering. Pushpin clustering should prove a very useful way of handling dense pushpin datasets. This causes groups of pushpins to appear as a special "clustered pushpin" symbol when zoomed out. This removes map clutter and improves render times.
Here is a simple web page example taken from the Virtual Earth SDK:
ERROR [include_code_listing plugin]: File Not Found (/usr/www/users/winwaed/geowebguru/img/2009/ve_sample.html)
Microsoft have also recently released a Virtual Earth Web Service. This programmable SOAP service will probably eventually replace the existing MapPoint Web Service.
Which is best: Google Maps or Virtual Earth? That is a difficult question and one who's answer keeps changing. What is certain, is that active competition will continue to strengthen both products for at least the next year or so. Both products are also backed by large companies which show no sign of disappearing anytime soon.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 08 January 2009 19:05 |
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