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Written by Richard Marsden
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Wednesday, 02 December 2009 15:02 |
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Earlier today, Microsoft launched a significant upgrade of their Bing Maps service with the addition of "Streetside™", "Enhanced" Bird's Eye, and Photosynth views. The main Bing Maps site ( http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/ ) has been moved from JavaScript AJAX to the Silverlight 3 control. Microsoft have been gathering "Streetview" -like data for a few years, so it is of no surprise that some of it has been released in their main map interface. However, Streetside™ is quite a bit more sophisticated than rival street imagery products. At first glance it might look the same, but as soon as you start to navigate, you realise that Streetside represents a fully immersive 3d model. This appears to be "Photosynth applied to street imagery, and displayed using Silverlight Bing Maps 3d", although I have yet to see any official confirmation of this. Streetside coverage is currently limited to US cities only. The enhanced Bird's Eye views switch to 3d building models for urban areas. Non-urban views now include 3d terrain models (eg. mountains). Technically, the PhotoSynth additions do not not add anything new, but the interface is now native. Select "PhotoSynth" from the legend, icons will appear letting you "dive right in" to a Photosynth. This all sounds great, and the user interface feels slicker with the new Silverlight 3 version. The only downside with the new version is that I found the controls were not as initially obvious as they used to be. I think this is a combination of design/colors, as well as the fact that they've changed and I was simply used to the old controls. The full list of additions can be found on Chris Pendleton's blog, here.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 December 2009 15:50 |
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