More fresh imagery for Virtual Earth

April 29, 2009 By 2 Comments

bahamasAnother imagery update for Virtual Earth.  They’ve still not released any new 3D “version 2″ cities (WHY??), but they keep pushing new imagery out at a good pace.

This update covers “only” 9TB of data, but they brag that it covers over 1 million square kilometers of Earth.  That sounds nice, but I wonder how it compares to previous releases and typical Google Earth releases?  I have no idea.  I have a feeling that it’s a pretty low number, but it sounds good because we have no scale to measure it against.

In any case, it’s still a very nice update and covers more than 65 countries.  You can get the full details on VE Evangelist’s blog.

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Another large imagery update for Virtual Earth

March 27, 2009 By 1 Comment

Microsoft has just pushed out another large imagery update for Virtual Earth.  While it’s only 21TB (a huge number for sure, but smaller than previous releases), it adds new imagery to parts of 63 different countries.  Quite impressive!

You can view the full list of updates here.

I just wanna know when we’re gonna see more 3D cities from them.  No word on what’s going on, and they haven’t responded to my inquiries.  Strange…

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Another big Virtual Earth imagery update

March 4, 2009 By 1 Comment

Microsoft has pushed out another big imagery update for Virtual Earth — this one with about 55TB of data.  Quite impressive!

This covers most types of imagery in many areas around the world.  A detailed list can be found here.

My question is: what’s up with the 3D cities?  They simply haven’t been adding any more.  They are awesome, they are apparently dormant, and no one can tell me what’s up.  Anyone have any idea why they’re not adding more of those?

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Digital Earth products with Windows 7

January 10, 2009 By 2 Comments

I downloaded Windows 7 on my laptop tonight (dual boot with XP) and started testing the various digital earth products.  So far, so good!

Google Earth went without a hitch.  It runs very well, too!

The Google Earth plug-in worked perfectly as well.

Google Maps worked, as did StreetView.

Virtual Earth installed flawlessly and worked briefly, then locked up the PC hard.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with how these programs are working with Windows 7.  I had intended to say “this works, that doesn’t, etc”, but everything works (for the most part).  I am very impressed with Windows 7 speed-wise, too.  It’s had a few hiccups (video card didn’t want to play nice), but these apps are FLYING on this old machine.

By the time it goes gold, I expect big things out of it.

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Huge imagery release for Virtual Earth

November 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment

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

Orthos

 

  • Spain
  • Japan
Obliques (Bird’s Eye)
  • United States
  • Japan
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
  • Austria
  • Luxembourg
Sadly, once again, there doesn’t appear to be any new 3D buildings.  C’mon Microsoft — those “version 2″ cities are amazing and we want more of them!
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Virtual Earth 6.2 released, with stunning clouds

September 25, 2008 By 1 Comment

Virtual Earth 6.2 has been released, with a whole host of new features.  Among them:

  • New imagery —  ”Richer bird’s eye” and new 3D imagery, but I can’t find a list of what’s been updated.
  • Weather integration — Real-time clouds (see more below)
  • Localized maps — English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
  • Near-matching — Helps find locations with alternate and similar spellings.
  • Landmark-based routing
  • Rich imagery for mobile users — Their screenshot shows an iPhone, but I can’t make it work on mine.  Maybe I need a specific URL?
  • One-click directions

The new imagery might be worth writing about, but I can’t find what’s new.  However, the clouds are very cool.  Fly down low in a city, look up, then wait a few seconds.  Pop!  There they are.

Unlike the clouds in Google Earth, these are fully 3D semi-transparent clouds.  Flying through them, they look almost real — it’s very impressive.There are a few downsides, though.  For one, they load in square tile areas.  If you fly too quickly, they’ll disappear until the next set loads.  Also, there is no way to leave them on and get a satellite view of an area from up high; if you fly very high above them, they simply go away to leave you with a clear view of the ground.

I’ll leave you with a short video demo of the clouds, shot by Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog.  With it, you can really see just how cool this feature is.  He’s using a SpaceNavigator to fly through them, a tool which I strongly recommend for any avid Virtual Earth (or Google Earth) user.

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Virtual Earth update time

September 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Just a few days ago I mentioned that I hadn’t seen an imagery update for Virtual Earth in a while, and now we have one.

This one reportedly has a staggering 48TB worth of imagery, but doesn’t cover that many places.  The list:

Orthos

  • Yakima, WA
  • Springfield, MO
  • Spokane, WA
  • Portland, ME
  • Grand Rapids, MI
  • Billings, MT
  • Minneapolis, MN (UltraCam Refresh)
  • Seattle, WA (UltraCam Refresh)
  • Las Vegas, NV (UltraCam Refresh)
  • Phoenix, AZ (UltraCam Refresh)
  • Tampa, Fl (UltraCam Refresh)

Vector

  • Vector overlays for Navteq and MDS data sources for orthos and Bird’s Eye
  • All mobile tiles
  • New British Isles Map style

3D

  • Tampa, FL
Only one new 3D city?  Bummer.  I’m dying to see the country (and world) get populated with those awesome “version 2″ cities, but they really seem to be slowing down.  Hopefully they can pick up the pace and get more areas fleshed out in the near future.
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The energy costs of Hurricane Ike

September 12, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Brian Timoney has made some nice updates to GulfImpact.com ahead of Hurricane Ike.  Not only does it give you the location and path of the storm, but it shows all of the affected oil wells in the Gulf, broken down by company.  He uses Virtual Earth to power it.

I’ve heard a lot of news stories about how gas prices are likely to shoot up due to this, and this site shows why.  Great site!

(via Spatially Adjusted)

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Virtual Earth map control 6.2 coming in a few weeks

September 10, 2008 By 2 Comments

According to Nate Irwin, version 6.2 of the Virtual Earth map control is coming on September 22nd.  This new map control brings a lot of great features to the table, including landmark-based directions and real-time weather in 3D.

Here’s my big question, though — where’s the new imagery?  Unless I’ve missed something, they haven’t added any new imagery since July, and they haven’t updated any 3D cities since June.  I absolutely love their “version 2″ cities in 3D, and was hoping we’d see a steady stream of them.

Any idea when more might be coming our way?

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The July update for Virtual Earth is out

July 22, 2008 By 1 Comment

It’s not nearly as large as some recent Virtual Earth updates, but there’s still quite a bit packed into this one.  No new 3D cities that I know of, but a bunch of new imagery.  New orthos in a handful of places in the US, all of Austria, and various cities in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.  In addition, there is new satellite and Bird’s Eye imagery for a variety of locations.

You can see the full list of updated areas here.

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