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Bing Maps

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Live Search logo Live Search
Maps
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
TypeWeb mapping service
Virtual globe
Websitehttp://maps.live.com
http://local.live.com
http://virtualearth.com

Live Search Maps (previously Windows Live Maps and Windows Live Local) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Windows Live online applications services suite and powered by the Microsoft Virtual Earth framework.

Features

Street Maps

Detailed street maps are available for many cities worldwide. Metro stations, stadiums, hospitals, and other facilities also appear on the maps. Users can also see the directions of roads and streets. Search is available, so that users can search for any location/street, a business or category, or even search for people.

For some countries, like South Africa, and South Korea, Live Search Maps has data on highways and some arterial roads, but lacks local streets or alleys. There is also detailed map data available for several global cities in developing countries like Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Mexico City. However, for such cities, the detail of the map decreases significantly as one moves outward from the city center.

Live Search Maps has a tendency to mark certain secret three-digit Interstates in the United States, such as I-444[1] , I-110[2], , I-478[3], and the Interstate Highways in Alaska. [4]. Still other auxiliary Interstates, whose signs are not posted for various reasons, are labeled incorrectly as part of another Interstate. Examples are I-695 (DC), which is labeled as part of I-295 (DC)[5], and I-878, which is labeled as I-678.[6]

Satellite Images

Satellite images are available too, users can zoom in until they see cars and, in some cities, people can be seen walking in the street (appearing as tiny black dots). Some of the images are very high-quality, others are not, depending on the city.

For images where users can both view satellite images with map details, users can enable the "Hybrid" option.

List of countries and cities that have detailed satellite images:

File:Virtual Earth Birds Eye.png
Windows Live Maps viewed in 3D and, birds eye view. The bottom image shows the quality to which the image can be seen

Bird's eye view

In over 100 cities in the United States[7] and in over 80 European locations,[8] a bird's-eye view offers aerial photos from four points of view. These Pictometry images are much more detailed than the aerial views from directly above buildings. Signs on tops of buildings, advertisements, pedestrians, and other objects are clearly visible in many bird's eye views.

3D Maps

Instead of viewing flat satellite maps, users can enable the "3D Maps" feature and see buildings in 3D, fly around, rotate and tilt. To add realistic effect, all of the 3D buildings are textured using images taken from different angles of every single building.

To view the 3D maps, users have first to install a plugin, then enable the "3D" option on "Virtual Earth". Rotating and tilting options can be used only in the 3D maps. At the CES 2007 keynote speech by Microsoft, it was announced that it is possible to navigate the 3D environment using an Xbox 360 or other game controller in Windows Vista or Windows XP. The 3D plugin released in April 2007 can be controlled with 3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator as well.

Currently, most of the large cities of the United States, and a few cities in Canada, United Kingdom, and France can be fully viewed in 3D. As for cities that cannot be fully viewed in 3D, users can still view only a few buildings there in 3D that are usually sights and attractions within these cities (such as the Colosseum in Rome).

The most up-to-date set of cities that have 3D buildings can be found at here: http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=320432CACC287CB4!101&encType=1

The following is a partial list of cities that have most areas rendered in 3D:

United States Atlanta, Augusta, Aurora-Naperville, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Boston, Buffalo, Cape Coral, Chattanooga, Chicago, Columbus, Coral Springs, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Huntsville, Indianapolis, Jackson, Jacksonville, Joliet, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Mobile, Montgomery, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland (OR), Rockford, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Savannah, Seattle, Shreveport, St. Louis, St. Petersburg, Tacoma, Tallahassee, Tampa, Tucson, West Palm Beach.

Canada Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto

United Kingdom Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Eastbourne, Gloucester, Liverpool, Northampton, Norwich, Plymouth, Swindon, Wolverhampton

France Toulouse, Vannes

Other features

File:Virtual Earth Traffic.png
Live Search Maps showing where there is traffic and relevant details
  • Terrain details are also available in 3D mode.
  • Finding, viewing, and printing driving directions
  • Traffic viewing (in several major cities)
  • User points of interest that can be stored and shared
  • Drawing on maps
  • A location finder that can locate the user's location
  • Integrated route calculation
  • Street-level photos (from all directions) only in Seattle, WA (city center) and San Francisco, CA (city center). Users can view these photos by driving a race or sports car, or by having a walk

History and Updates

Live Search Maps was based on existing Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft MapPoint, and TerraServer. Upon its release in December 2005, Windows Live Local became the public face of the Virtual Earth platform. On November 6, 2006, Microsoft added the ability to view the maps in 3D using a .NET managed control and managed interfaces to Direct3D. Microsoft has recently referred to this product officially as "Live Search Maps", integrating it as part of its Live Search services.

  • v1 (Beagle) (July 2005)
  • v2 (Calypso) (December 2005) - "Bird's-eye imagery" released.
  • v2.5 (February 2006)
  • v3 (Discovery) (May 2006) - Real time traffic, collections, new API.
  • v4 (Endeavour) (September 2006) - People search, drawing on maps, new imagery.
  • v5 (Spaceland) (November 2006) - 3D viewer, building models in 15 cities.
  • Data update (December 2006) - New 3D models and high-resolution imagery for 6 new areas.
  • Data update (January 2007) - Over 100 European cities with bird's-eye coverage added.
  • Data update (29 March 2007) - 3.8TB of bird's-eye imagery, orthophotos and 3D models of 5 British cities.
  • v5.5 (Falcon) (3 April 2007) VE 3D plugin for Firefox, GeoRSS support, area calculations.
  • v6 (Gemini) (15 October 2007) - New data, party maps, traffic based routing, v6 MapControl, Bird's Eye in 3D, etc.

Compatibility

Users of browsers that are not considered compatible, as well as users of versions of compatible browsers that are not supported, will be directed away from viewing the map without an error message.

WebKit-based browsers such as Safari and Konqueror have experienced problems accessing Live Search Maps and related websites.[9] Microsoft states that Safari is not supported on Live Search Maps[10] but it is sometimes possible to gain entry by spoofing the user agent as a supported browser.[11]

Microsoft states that Live Search Maps can be used with Internet Explorer 5.5 and later and with Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows and Mac OS X; Firefox on Linux and Firefox 2.0 also appear to work. Opera is stated to be usable "with some functionality limitations".[12]

3D Feature

See also

References

  1. ^ Live Local Search
  2. ^ Live Local Search
  3. ^ Live Local Search
  4. ^ Live Local Search
  5. ^ Live Local Search
  6. ^ Live Local Search
  7. ^ List of bird's eye view cities in the US
  8. ^ List of bird's eye view sites in Europe
  9. ^ http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15120
  10. ^ Virtual Earth : What's New in the Virtual Earth 6.0 Map Control
  11. ^ Why doesn’t Microsoft Maps get the hype? « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger
  12. ^ http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/download/newsroom/msn/WLLocalRG.doc
  13. ^ System requirements for Virtual Earth 3D (Beta)

Live Search Maps

Official Team Blogs

Developers resources

ASP.NET

  • Web.Maps.VE - The industries First ASP.NET AJAX Virtual Earth Mapping Server Control. This control allows map events to be handled from within Server-Side .NET code without Postbacks; completely eliminating the requirement to use JavaScript. A full JavaScript API is also available to allow fully customized implementations.

Other

  • Flash Earth - Compares satellite images from Virtual Earth with other mapping websites such as Google Maps, and Yahoo Maps
  • Bird's Eye Tourist - Links to "bird's-eye" images


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