Gee, looks like Virtual Earth updates (and more) happened today, including:
The new local search capabilities in Live Search include not only a broad set of expert sources but also broad access to user-generated content from Live Search and from across the entire Web, through searchable user-created collections and Keyhole Markup Language (KML) support.
-
Press release with details
--- original post -----
This week is Directions Media's Rocket City Geospatial Conference in Huntsville, Alabama. Today we hosted seven workshops. I was lucky enough to sit in on two: Virtual Earth Technology and Solution Development by Steve Milroy of Advaiya, a Microsoft Partner, and Digital Airborne Sensors by Jay Arnold & Carter Christoper of 3001.
The Virtual Earth workshop was divided in two: the first half was a "what's possible" presentation with lots of demos. The second half focused on the development environments and when to use which (Java vs. SOAP). The notable points for me:
- Virtual Earth uses Group 1 (Pitney Bowes) GeoStan for address geocoding. That helps locate addresses in Bird's Eye view in addition to in 2D.
- There are about 1200 "paying" enterprise users of Virtual Earth. How many have moved off the MapPoint Web Services platform? Some.
- MapPoint Web Services (MWS) are not going away and complement Virtual Earth. In fact Target uses both: VE for finding store locations and MWS for simplified directions ("line drive" maps).
- The questions were far different than earlier Virtual Earth presentations I've seen, in part because the attendees were GIS people. In short, these were the deep questions GIS people ask that clearly reveal they working to explore whether this platform makes sense for their needs.
- For now there is no way to bring your own 3D models into Virtual Earth, but it's coming!
- Virtual Earth already supports KML and GeoRSS - stay tuned on KML. "Work is being done..."
- What's the schedule of data updates? Street maps (NAVTEQ) every 3-6 months; Pictometry - still building out the dataset; imagery (GeoEye and others), every 12-18 months.
- Will support for metadata of imagery be available in the API or Live Search Maps? Coming to the API, not clear if it will make the end-user app. (I voted "yes.")
- The future?
(1)The basic philosophy of Virtual Earth: "What's it like there?" (Contrast that with Google "organizing the world's information.")
(2)Tighter integration of MWS.
(3)More data - both expanded geographies and more up-to-date and more kinds of data. Basic focus is now on North America, Europe and major Western countries).
(4)SDK enhancement - expect an update in the coming weeks.
The airborne sensors talk was also split in two parts: the first reviewed sensors and different methods of remote sensing. The organization offered the contrasts between:
- Pushbroom vs. frame-based sensors
- Multi vs. Hyperspectral
- LiDAR vs IFSAR
If these don't ring bells, it's probably a good time to sit on a presentation like this for homework. (Frankly, I need to hear this stuff about once a year - and I always learn something new!)
The second half of the presentation did something I'd never seen in a presentation: it walked through the process of contacting data through delivery and was presented by a project manager. We saw which parts of the project relate to how much of the budget and learned when things can cost more than others. (More complex topography? More cost. Challenging climate? More cost.) If nothing else I have a much better sense as to why imagery costs as much as it does and the many steps from request to delivery.
We are hoping to provide the slides from both these workshops on the
conference home page in the future.
