Well, it didn’t take long for us to add these features to the already robust set of APIs in the Bing Maps Platform, now did it? In case you’ve been in some analog state without Internet access you should first read, “Bing Maps Adds Streetside, Enhanced Bird’s Eye, Photosynth and More.” Starting today, you can download the required DLLs for adding Bing Maps Streetside(TM) and Enhanced Bird’s Eye to your...
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I’m putting together a web cast focused on the latest features of the Bing Maps Platform scheduled for Thursday December 10, 2009 @ 10AM PST. And, this time it’s Level 200 so I get to show code! If you’re already familiar with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control you may still want to tune in. I may surprise you with a thing or two. If you haven’t developed with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control this session is definitely...
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So, you’re stuck using ActionScript in Flex so you can produce Flash applications. You’re all excited about the Bing Maps Silverlight Control, but are getting some directive that requires you to use Flash; but, man, you really love Bing Maps. No problemo. The Bing Maps Platform team has partnered with AFComponents (AFC) to provide a Flash-based interface for building robust map applications. AFC has created a very robust SDK for...
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  PHP – did anyone ever find out what this actually was an acronym for? “Personal Home Page” or “PHP Home Page” or something else? I actually did some PHP back when it was like version 2 and there was some HUGE security hole for hackers to take over your site. I really thought it was going to die because of JSP, so I stopped using it but I did enjoy using it. It lives on. I digress. Anyway, I know there...
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It recently occurred to me that there is a misunderstanding within the Virtual Earth Web Service SDK that may lead you to believe that you could set the MapStyle enumeration to get a Bird’s eye image. Not the case. This is part of the method for getting tiles (not an actual map). So, via the Virtual Earth Web Service you have access to all of our tiles – road, aerial, hybrid and Bird’s eye, and in desktop and mobile flavors...
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I had a few inquiries as to how one could programmatically turn weather off in the Virtual Earth AJAX Control. Didn’t know there was weather? Yes, turn on 3D by clicking the “3D” button on your favorite Virtual Earth web site (such as Live Search Maps). Once you get down to a particular zoom level you’ll see the clouds appear (given it’s a cloudy day in the respective city). In fact, we improved the cloud presentation...
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As mentioned previously, I want to ensure the community has lots of code samples for the Virtual Earth Silverlight Map Control. Well, apparently I wasn’t alone. Many folks have sent me their code samples and links to blogs, so I’ll go ahead and consolidate a few of them here: Johannes Kebeck (Microsoft): Database Connections with the Virtual Earth Silverlight MapControl CTP Michael Scherotter (Microsoft): Data Binding with the Virtual...
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Jim Duffy of TakeNote Technologies, and Microsoft MVP, wrote an in depth article for CoDe Magazine covering Microsoft Virtual Earth from the AJAX map control to the Virtual Earth Web Service. Now, most CoDe Magazine articles require a login for paid access, but after pulling a few strings the article is now wide open – so go get it. The article, "Virtual Earth 101" is a great overview for beginners, so if you’re a...
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My good friend Mark Riches from VizRT / Curious recently integrated Microsoft Virtual Earth into the Viz Curious Maps software for television production. They use Virtual Earth maps in broadcast scenarios all over the world. "Viz Curious Maps is the broadcast industry’s de facto standard for the creation of branded maps and geographic animations. By extending Viz Curious Maps to a server edition, it can provide real-time, branded map...
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I’ve been working on this one for a while and it kind of completes the basics for getting started with the Virtual Earth Web Service. The Routing Service in VEWS allows for route calculation and itinerary creation.  The following will get you started using the routing service. In this sample I’ll instantiate the service request, pass the points into an array, set options for the route object, get the route object back and parse...
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