MapForums

Today the Virtual Earth team launched a new release of the Virtual Earth platform, chock full of enhancements.

Below is the complete list of improvements as provided by our ace marketing team. But I want to call attention to a couple of things that just really impressed me.

First, we have 4 amazing new and enhanced 3D cities: Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix. What makes these "new and improved"? Holy Toledo (Toledo not included) ... 10x the amount of buildings in each 3D city, 3D trees, super enhanced building textures, VASTLY improved color balancing and contrast, and more detailed terrain features. If you were already impressed by the Virtual Earth 3D models--and you should have been--wait until you see these. No ... don't wait ... check out the Virtual Earth 3D blog dedicated just to the Virtual Earth 3D work coming out of the Microsoft 3D Integration team in Boulder, CO and Graz, Austria. Truly unreal stuff.

Note that when you attempt to access the 3D mode you will likely be prompted to download the new Virtual Earth managed control software (5 MB plug-in) again to operate Virtual Earth in 3D. You want this! The new map control allows for smoother transitions between tile layers, and smoother layering of labels onto the map. I found this as cool as any of the enhancements.

And speaking of which ... the map control panel in the user interface has changed: "hybrid" mode is gone, thankfully. (What did that mean anyway?)* Now, if you want labels on top of your aerial imagery, whether in 2D or 3D mode, you click on "Labels". Genius. There is also now an option for Traffic you right in the panel.

Meanwhile we also launched Tokyo 3D. While this is not processed using the new engineering techniques that allow for the enhanced Virtual Earth cities described above, it is still really exciting because it is our first Asian Virtual Earth 3D city and it is HUGE: 12,791 buildings in Tokyo, but about 60,000 buildings in the Tokyo area including Saitama. (Compared to our 3D model of the New York City metro area which totaled 34,800 buildings.) Take a look:

And there is a lot more to this new release that I haven't even explored!

In this latest release, the Virtual Earth platform delivers on its promise to empower organizations with a new way to see their world and achieve their goals.

Remember that most of these new features and functionality can be seen free at our Live Search Maps consumer destination site.

Immersive Imagery
Virtual Earth is an industry leader in providing precise views of the world through bird’s eye¹ view and panning, and improved 3D model accuracy and resolution, among other features. Precise imagery creates immersive end-user experiences that bring location-based information to life.

• More Detailed 3D Experiences: With this latest release, the map detail for Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Dallas, TX; and Denver, CO features improvements in 3D model accuracy and resolution detail to reveal more buildings, small terrain features, building textures, and trees that enhance overall realism. This enhanced 3D map detail will soon roll out to the more than 250 cities where 3D models are currently available.

• Tailored 3D Tours. Media producers can customize video output of 3D fly though tours in six resolutions, in 15 or 30 frames per second, and can add photos and hide or display pushpin icons.
  
• Bird’s Eye View in 3D. Users can easily toggle bird’s eye view on and off for a seamless end-user experience.
  
• Bird’s Eye Hybrid View. Customers can now select a new map style called Bird’s Eye Hybrid that adds street names to the bird’s eye maps to provide end users better visual context and orientation.

Enhanced Location Functionality
This latest release of Virtual Earth provides organizations with a host of new features that deliver directions—in more languages—to get users where they’re going faster. With enhanced tools that provide greater flexibility and control over the development of location solutions, organizations can continue to update and enhance their online experience to help them remain competitive and provide satisfying end-user experiences.

• New Walking Directions. When traveling on foot, users in North America and the European Union can now find the most direct route to walk to their destination, ignoring one-way streets, medians, and other detours that pertain to motor vehicles.
  
• New Traffic-based Routing. Want to take the frontage road and avoid the highway at rush hour? Users can now choose alternate routes based on current traffic flows to get where they’re going faster.
  
• New Reverse Geocoding. Users in the U.S. can now find the closest street address based only on latitude and longitude coordinates from a GPS or other geospatial device.
  
• Improved Localized Directions. Organizations can now provide users with localized driving or walking directions in 15 languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian, among others.
  
• New Locales. The Virtual Earth dashboard, or navcontrol, is localized to support languages including English for U.S.-based speakers, Japanese, Italian, Spanish for U.S.-based speakers, as well as French for both France and Canada-based speakers.

Enhanced Infrastructure
The Virtual Earth platform is designed for the enterprise user, from features to support. This 6.1 release enhances the platform infrastructure with new cross-browser support to reach more users. The Interactive SDK is available now to demonstrate the latest features and functionality.

• Safari Support. The new map control includes improved support for Apple Safari 2 and new support for Safari 3, enabling Mac users to enjoy many of the features of Virtual Earth that are available on Internet Explorer®.
  
• Improved Printing Support. Printing support for maps is enhanced to print the driving route in relation to the map. Printing support is also expanded for cross-browser support of Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 2 for PC, and Safari 2 and 3 for Mac only.
  
• Updated Interactive SDK. Customers can now access the new Virtual Earth Interactive SDK for online viewing or via download, to demonstrate the new functionality of the Virtual Earth map control.

[1]Available in many metropolitan areas across the U.S. Licensing restrictions for government customers.

See Original Post...