Digital Earth Blog

Microsoft has rolled out another enormous imagery release for Virtual Earth.  Details can be found here, but the quick version includes:

Orthos

• Spain
• Japan

To go with the new ClearFlow traffic, Microsoft has just released a slew of new features for Virtual Earth.  They include:

• Export collections to GPS using KML, GPX and GeoRSS.
• Improved 3D cities.  Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix are now in “version 2″, which includes higher-res textures, more buildings and even rendered tress.  Other cities will be added/updated as time goes on.
• Better 3D modeling using 3DVIA.  Microsoft’s answer to SketchUp, 3DVIA, has seen a handful of improvements.
• Labels for Birds Eye imagery.
• MapCruncher Integration.  MapCruncher allows you to do overlays in a similar manner to Google Earth.  It’s more complex than needed for simple overlays, but it’s very powerful for large or uneven overlays.  With this release you can add your MapCrunched layers to your Collections, then share them.
• Capture hi-def movies of your tours, up to 1920×1080.
• Improved KML display.

For more, check out the full post on the Virtual Earth / Live Maps blog, or read Frank’s write-up on the Google Earth Blog.

On April 10, Microsoft plans to release Virtual Earth version 6.1.  Among the enhancements:

• Enhanced experiences with bird’s eye view in 3D, and new bird’s eye hybrid view.
• Reverse geocoding for U.S. users.
• Walking directions for North America and European Union users.
• Traffic-based driving directions.
• New cross-browser support.
• Improved printing support for maps.

That’s quite a bit of good stuff.  While I’ve always been impressed with the rate of imagery added to Virtual Earth, I’ve felt that they’ve been behind Google Earth/Maps in terms of features.  Improvements like this are helping them to narrow that gap.  Many of these are things that Google Maps can already do (cross-browser support, traffic-based directions, etc), but it’s nice to see them continue to catch up.

Bird’s Eye imagery has always been a unique feature that they have, so adding hybrid support to that will be neat to see.

Not quite as big as their last few updates, but this one still has quite a bit.

The list includes:

New/Updated Birds Eye Cities in the US

• Etowah Co, AL
• Mobile Co, AL
• Monterey Co, CA
• Boulder Co
• Broomfield Co
• WashingtonDC.
• Cobb Co, GA
• De Kalb Co, GA
• Muscogee Co, GA
• Macon Co, IL
• Will Co, IL
• Rowan Co, KY
• Fayette Co, KY
• Anne Arundel Co, MD
• Grand Rapids Metro, MI
• Detroit Metro North, MI
• Cottonwood Co, MN
• Buncombe Co, NC
• Greenville Metro, NC
• Wilson Co, NC
• Lancaster Co, NE
• Strafford Co, NH
• San Juan Co, NM
• Binghamton Metro, NY
• Butler Co, PA
• Westmoreland Co, PA
• Greenwood Co, SC
• Williamson Co, TX
• Fisher Co, TX
• Salt Lake City Metro, UT
• Hampton Metro, VA
• Alexandria, VA
• Arlington Co, VA
• Spokane, WA

Full details can be found on the Virtual Earth / Live Maps blog.