Where 2.0 action continues with the release of the Bing Maps World Tour application which gives you a release by release breakdown of all the imagery updates we’ve published dating back to August 2009. Some of you may recall the World Tour application which we’ve used to publish imagery updates in the past. In an effort to consolidate the experience into the most logical location, we’re moving it from it’s lonely Azure island into Bing Maps and updating the interface, so here’s the breakdown of how the app works now.
There are 4 tabs in the welcome panel – Welcome, Highlights, Filter and Other Releases. The Welcome tab is a text-based overview of the application.
The Highlights tab is a quick view at some of the notable places where imagery was released for the respective release. Here you can see a list of places, with the respective countries, imagery type and total square kilometers for the respective location for that release.
The Filter tab allows you to view all of the imagery for the selected release by either continent or type. So, if you only want to see the new Aerial imagery for Oceania in the February 2010 Part 2 release, you just select “Oceania” then select “Aerial” after setting the release date in the “Other Release” tab.
The Other Releases tab gives you access to previous releases. So, if you want to see the imagery updates for August 2009 click the Other Releases tab and select August, 2009.
Also, notice what appears to be media controls? No, you can’t play music…although, that would be really cool! Those controls are for playing through the slide show of the respective release. Press play and Bing Maps will whizz you around the world zooming down to the respective location where new imagery exists one location at a time. Hit >> to go to the next location and << to go to the previous. We should get some music.
By default, we’re loading the latest and great imagery release. Which reminds me, we just unloaded 2 releases totaling over 6.2 million square kilometers! Holy smokes. When will this madness end??? When we have the whole world? NO! Because we’ll just keep updating it and pumping out new pictures. Here are the details for the March, 2010 Imagery Releases (part 1 and 2).
March, 2010 – Part 1 – 4.9 MILLION square kilometers of new and refreshed imagery! The update includes high resolution 20cm aerial for USA and 60cm satellite updates for Australia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Lesotho, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, New Zealand, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa and Turkey.
March, 2010 – Part 2 – 1.3 MILLION square kilometers of new and refreshed imagery! The update includes high resolution 20cm aerial for USA, Mexico, Australia, Austria, France, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Slovakia and the UK and 60cm satellite updates for Australia, Chile, Lesotho, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Slovenia and South Africa.
CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton