February 2008

 

Microsoft Acquires Caligari Corp.

In early February, Microsoft Corp. announced the acquisition of Caligari Corp., one of the pioneers of 3-D modeling, rendering and animation software. Caligari brings its 22 years of experience in 3-D collaborative authoring tools to the Microsoft Virtual Earth team. The California-based company’s award-winning flagship product, trueSpace, is a 3-D modeling, rendering and animation program used by 3-D artists, game designers, illustrators and animators worldwide. For more information, please see the entry in Virtual Earth / Live Maps or Virtual Earth for Government.

 

 

Windermere Real Estate Migrates to Virtual Earth V6

With the beta launch of Property Point 3, Windermere, recognized by the Realty Alliance and REAL Trends as the top regional real estate firm in the United States, migrated from a mapping solution built on ESRI and Google mapping to the Virtual Earth V6 platform. Property Point 3, powered by Virtual Earth, allows users to view homes for sale in designated areas, along with pictures, prices, address information and links to additional property information. For more information, please see the entries in Virtual Earth / Live Maps or the Virtual Earth Evangelist's blog.

 

 

HAR.com Remodel Integrates Virtual Earth

On Feb. 14, the Houston Association of Realtors launched a remodeled HAR.com, one of the nation’s most popular Internet real estate sites. The enhancements to HAR.com include the addition of Virtual Earth aerial, bird’s-eye and 3-D mapping technology.* Virtual Earth enables property searches to be conducted based on a variety of parameters, including proximity to schools, hospitals, police and fire stations, and businesses such as supermarkets, restaurants and banks. Properties that meet a searcher’s criteria are displayed with colored pushpins that, when clicked, reveal detailed property information, including enlargeable photos and home specifications. For more information, please visit read the press release.

 

 

MSNBC Launches Virtual Earth Bridge Tracker for Travelers

In late January, MSNBC launched Bridge Tracker, a Virtual Earth application that allows travelers to check the condition and last inspection dates for bridges within 0.2 miles of a specified route. Users can set filters to map bridges by status (not deficient, functionally obsolete, structurally deficient) or inspection schedule (on time, one to 12 months late, more than 12 months late). Scrolling over a bridge icon reveals additional background information, including the year the bridge was built and the average daily traffic. The site boasts more than 100,000 U.S. bridges for which the records come from the latest National Bridge Inventory. To check the safety of the bridges you cross, please visit the MSNBC Bridge Tracker.

 

 

New York City Transit Adopts Virtual Earth

On Feb. 12, MTA New York City Transit announced the release of a new, Virtual Earth-powered version of its Trip Planner online travel itinerary service. Trip Planner’s Virtual Earth-driven user interface allows customers to search and explore 3-D city locations from all angles and vantage points, and retrieve point-to-point routing directions from the comfort of their home, office or hotel room before heading out the door. Another new feature, built with our MapCruncher API, allows Trip Planner users to overlay the actual area subway routes and stations on top of Virtual Earth maps. To explore New York City or for more information, please visit the Virtual Earth Government Blog or read the press release.

 

 

London Executive Launches Virtual Earth-Based PropertyBird

In February, London Executive, a niche-market real estate agency that deals solely with prime central London properties, launched PropertyBird. The application leverages Virtual Earth to provide exceptional aerial photography through bird’s-eye imagery. The unique view enables London Executive house-hunting clients to receive unprecedented information, such as the quality and height of adjacent buildings and the density of street parking spaces. For more information, please visit the Virtual Earth Evangelist's Blog..

 

 

First Austrian Virtual Earth Partner Workshop in Salzburg

On Feb. 25, the first Austrian Virtual Earth Partner Workshop took place, with 80 attendees at the Science City in Salzburg, Austria, initiated by Microsoft and the Centre for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS) at the University of Salzburg. The members received insights into various partner business applications and learned how these applications can simplify and optimize business processes. The highlight of the event was a technical presentation given by Johannes Kebeck, technology specialist for Virtual Earth. The Centre for Geoinformatics is a well-established center of competence in geographic information science, active in research, continuing education and industry cooperation. For more information, please visit Centre of Geoinformatics.

 

 

Hospitality Technology Webcast Features Virtual Earth

On March 6, Hospitality Technology magazine will host the webcast “An Introduction to Social Networking for Lodging Executives,” sponsored by Microsoft and featuring Virtual Earth. Social media is exploding in popularity as consumers turn to online networking sites to share ideas, feedback and files and simply keep in touch with their communities. The flexibility of Virtual Earth allows hotels, resorts, casinos and cruise lines to overlay a diagram of their property on a 3-D satellite image and layer other visual information and text. For more information or to register for the webcast, please see the webcast.

 

 

Microsoft Global Energy Forum

On March 25, Microsoft will host the Fifth Annual Global Energy Forum in Houston. The forum, designed to showcase how some of the most successful companies are running strong on the power of their people, will feature a session detailing Marathon Oil Corp.’s implementation of a digital oilfield proof-of-concept system for three North Sea platforms. The solution, based on the PetroTrek Digital Oilfield technology developed by The Information Store, running on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Virtual Earth platforms, significantly improved access to well and field data, reducing the time required to make production optimization decisions. Marathon plans to move forward with a production implementation in 2008. For more information or to register for the event, please visit Global Energry Forum.

 

 

MIX08

The MIX08 conference will be held March 5–7, at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. The event is an intimate opportunity for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the Web. Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth tech evangelist, will lead a how-to session titled “Developing Applications With Microsoft Virtual Earth.” The session will highlight how developers, designers and business professionals can incorporate Virtual Earth mapping and aerial photography data from around the world, in 2-D and 3-D environments, into their own applications. For more information, please visit the Virtual Earth's Evangelist's Blog..

 

 

GITA Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference

March 9–12, the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) will host the Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference in Seattle. The conference is dedicated to exploring geospatial solutions in the context of infrastructure management. The Virtual Earth team will be onsite hosting a booth (203) and partnering with the SQL Server team to showcase the synergy of Virtual Earth and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with geospatial extensions. In addition, Microsoft subsidiary Vexcel Corp. will highlight the Virtual Earth appliance and its 3-D Custom Collections offering. Virtual Earth partners Idea Integration Corp. and IS Consulting Services LLC will show their Virtual Earth-based solutions. For more information or to register for the conference, please visit GITA.org.

 

 

Recent Updates

More Than 20 3-D Cities Added to Virtual Earth

On Feb. 26, Virtual Earth announced the addition of more than 20 U.S. and international cities in 3-D. The additions include Syracuse, N.Y.; Stamford, Conn.; Olympia, Wash.; Vannes, France; and Southampton, U.K. For more information and a detailed list of imagery updates, please visit New Birds Eye and 3D cities.

 

 

New and Updated Oblique and Ortho Imagery in Virtual Earth

On Feb. 26, Virtual Earth announced the addition of new and updated oblique and orthographic imagery in Virtual Earth. The updates include 34 new U.S. areas of bird’s-eye oblique scenes, 66 new European Union areas of bird’s-eye scenes and 19 new Canadian areas of orthographic imagery. For more information and a detailed list of imagery updates, please visit New Birds Eye and 3D cities.

 

 

Virtual Earth Version 2 to Be Retired

Version 2.0 of the Virtual Earth Map Control will be permanently retired on March 31, 2008. If you are currently using version 2.0, please be sure you upgrade to version 6.0 by March 31 to ensure Virtual Earth service availability. Upgrading to version 6.0 ensures that you are taking full advantage of the latest and greatest features that the Virtual Earth platform has to offer. To begin incorporating the latest features of Virtual Earth V6, begin with the Virtual Earth Interactive SDK. The Interactive SDK provides scenario-based, hands-on demonstrations with associated source code and references. To access the Interactive SDK, please visit Virtual Earth Interactive SDK.

 

 

 

Notes:

*Available in many metropolitan areas.