Live Search Maps
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Live SearchMaps |
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 Virtual Earth 3D within Live Search Maps |
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| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Latest release | v7 / April 10, 2008 |
| OS | Microsoft Windows |
| Genre | Web mapping service Virtual globe |
| Website | http://maps.live.com http://virtualearth.com |
Live Search Maps (previously Windows Live Maps and Windows Live Local) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Windows Live online applications services suite and powered by the Microsoft Virtual Earth framework.
Contents |
[edit] Features
[edit] Street Maps
Users can browse and search topographically-shaded street maps for many cities worldwide. Maps include certain points of interest built-in, such as metro stations, stadiums, hospitals, and other facilities. It is also possible to browse public user-created points of interest. Search can cover public collections, businesses or types of business, locations, or people.
For some countries, like South Africa, and South Korea, Live Search Maps has data on highways and some arterial roads, but lacks local streets or alleys. There is also detailed map data available for several global cities in developing countries like Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Mexico City. However, for such cities, the detail of the map decreases significantly as one moves outward from the city center.
Live Search Maps has a tendency to mark certain unsigned three-digit Interstates in the United States, such as I-444[1] , I-110[2], , I-478[3], and the Interstate Highways in Alaska. [4]. Still other auxiliary Interstates, whose signs are not posted for various reasons, are labeled incorrectly as part of another Interstate. Examples are I-695 (DC), which is labeled as part of I-295 (DC)[5], and I-878, which is labeled as I-678.[6]
[edit] Satellite Images
Live Search Maps also includes several terabytes of satellite and aerial imagery. In many areas, maximum resolution is approximately 4.5 pixels per meter. Elsewhere, especially in the most remote areas of the world, top resolution is a few orders of magnitude less. Users may toggle labels on or off, choosing whether to see the ground as it would appear from an airplane versus closer to how it would appear on a map.
List of countries that have detailed satellite images:
- United States
- Canada (with the exception of the province of New Brunswick in Atlantic Canada)
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- Italy
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Japan
- India
[edit] Bird's eye view
In over 100 cities in the United States[7] and in over 80 European locations,[8] a bird's-eye view offers aerial photos from four angles. These Pictometry images are much more detailed than the aerial views from directly above buildings. Signs, advertisements, pedestrians, and other objects are clearly visible in many bird's eye views.
[edit] 3D Maps
The 3D Maps feature lets user see buildings in 3D, with the added ability to rotate and tilt the angle in addition to panning and zooming. To attempt to achieve near-photorealism, all 3D buildings are textured using composites of aerial photography.
To view the 3D maps, users must install a plugin, then enable the "3D" option on "Virtual Earth". In addition to exploring the maps using a mouse and keyboard, it is possible to navigate the 3D environment using an Xbox 360 controller or another game controller in Windows Vista or Windows XP. As of April 2007, users may also use 3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator input device.
Currently, roughly 68 cities worldwide may be viewed in 3D, including most of the major cities in the United States and a few cities in Canada, the United Kingdom, and France.[9] Some additional cities have had a select few important landmarks modelled in 3D, such as the Colosseum in Rome. Terrain data is available for the entire world. It is also possible to use a simple 3D modelling program called Virtual Earth - 3DVIA to add one's own models to the 3D map.
The following is a partial list of cities that have most areas rendered in 3D:
United States Atlanta, Augusta, Aurora-Naperville, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Boston, Buffalo, Cape Coral, Chattanooga, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Coral Springs, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Huntsville, Indianapolis, Jackson, Jacksonville, Joliet, Kansas City, Knoxville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Mobile, Montgomery, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland (OR), Redmond, Rockford, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Savannah, Seattle, Shreveport, St. Louis, St. Petersburg, Tacoma, Tallahassee, Tampa, Tucson, West Palm Beach.
Canada Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto
United Kingdom Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Eastbourne, Gloucester, Liverpool, Northampton, Plymouth, Swindon, Wolverhampton
France Toulouse, Vannes
[edit] ClearFlow
Microsoft announced in March 2008 that it will be releasing its latest software technology called “ClearFlow”. It is a Web-based service for driving directions available on Live.com in 72 cities across the U.S.[10] The tool took five years for Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence team to develop. ClearFlow provides real-time traffic data to help drivers avoid traffic congestion. Differing from Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps and Mapquest, ClearFlow not only gives information for alternative routes, but supplies traffic conditions on city streets adjacent to highways.[11] Clearflow anticipates traffic patterns, while taking into account sporting/arena events, time of day and weather conditions, and then reflects the back ups and their consequential spill over onto city streets. Often, ClearFlow found it may be faster to stay on the highway instead of seeking alternative side street routes, which involve traffic lights and congestion as well.[12]
According to U.S Microsoft employee and artificial intelligence expert, Eric Horvitz, “…ClearFlow would be integrated into Live Search Mobile and other Microsoft mobile applications, including in-car navigation and personal navigation devices.”[13] Clearflow will be available at no cost. The one draw back of Clearflow is that it offers no real-time updates regarding highway and road closures or accidents.[14]
[edit] Other features
- Terrain details are also available in 3D mode.
- Finding, viewing, and printing driving directions
- Traffic viewing (in several major cities)
- User points of interest that can be stored and shared
- Drawing on maps
- A location finder that can locate the user's location
- Integrated route calculation
- Street-level photos (from all directions) in Seattle, WA (city center) and San Francisco, CA (city center). Users can view these photos by driving a race or sports car, or by having a walk. Street-level photography is currently only available as part of a separate tech preview site.
[edit] History
Live Search Maps was based on existing Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft MapPoint, and TerraServer. The original version lacked many of its now-distinguishing features, including birds' eye view and 3D maps, and the Collections functionality was limited to a single "Scratchpad" of points of interest. Upon its release in December 2005, Windows Live Local became the public face of the Virtual Earth platform. On November 6, 2006, Microsoft added the ability to view the maps in 3D using a .NET managed control and managed interfaces to Direct3D. Microsoft has recently referred to this product officially as "Live Search Maps", integrating it as part of its Live Search services.
[edit] Military Base Deletions
Early in 2008, following criticism that the similar program Google Earth may be used as a reconnaissance platform by terrorists, Microsoft began a program of deleting high definition aerial views of military bases and other similar installations from Live Search Maps.[15]
One example of such a deletion can be witnessed by viewing the Aviano Air Base in Northern Italy.[1] Whilst the base is viewable in low resolution from a low zoom level, zooming in reveals only farmland. It is unclear what location the photographs actually depict. Another example is the naval base in Toulon, France, which was blanked out in white.
[edit] United Kingdom
From 11 April to 15 April 2008, users in the UK who navigated to http://maps.live.com/ were automatically redirected to Multimap.com, making it very difficult to access Live Search Maps.[16] The issue was due to what the Live Search Maps team called "a couple of unfortunate bugs."[17]
[edit] Updates
- v1 (Beagle) (July 2005)
- v2 (Calypso) (December 2005) - "Bird's-eye imagery" released.
- v2.5 (February 2006)
- v3 (Discovery) (May 2006) - Real time traffic, collections, new API.
- v4 (Endeavour) (September 2006) - People search, drawing on maps, new imagery.
- v5 (Spaceland) (November 2006) - 3D viewer, building models in 15 cities.
- Data update (December 2006) - New 3D models and high-resolution imagery for 6 new areas.
- Data update (January 2007) - Over 100 European cities with bird's-eye coverage added.
- Data update (29 March 2007) - 3.8TB of bird's-eye imagery, orthophotos and 3D models of 5 British cities.
- v5.5 (Falcon) (3 April 2007) VE 3D plugin for Firefox, GeoRSS support, area calculations.
- v6 (Gemini) (15 October 2007) - New data, party maps, traffic based routing, v6 MapControl, Bird's Eye in 3D, etc.
- v6.1 (GoliatH) (10 April 2008) - Improved quality of 3D models, improved KML support and new export capabilities, street labels on Bird's Eye imagery, MapCruncher integration, HD filming capabilities, Clearflow traffic report system.
[edit] Compatibility
Microsoft states that Live Search Maps can be used with Internet Explorer 5.5 and later, with Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Windows and Mac OS X, and with Safari[18]. Firefox on Linux and Firefox 2.0 also appear to work. Opera is stated to be usable "with some functionality limitations".[19]
Users of browsers that are not considered compatible, as well as users of versions of compatible browsers that are not supported, will be directed away from viewing the map without an error message.
WebKit-based browsers such as Konqueror have experienced problems accessing Live Search Maps and related websites.[20]
The 3D Maps viewer plug-in requires Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista, with Internet Explorer 6/7 or Firefox 1.5/2.0.[21]
[edit] See also
- Comparison of Web Map Services
- Geoweb
- Google Earth
- Google Maps
- Microsoft MapPoint
- Mobile GMaps
- NASA World Wind
- Pictometry
- TerraServer-USA
- Yahoo Maps
[edit] References
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ Live Local Search
- ^ List of bird's eye view cities in the US
- ^ List of bird's eye view sites in Europe
- ^ List of 3D cities
- ^ Live Search Maps
- ^ Markoff, John (2008-04-10). "Microsoft Introduces Tool for Avoiding Traffic Jams". New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
- ^ Glazowski, Paul (2008-04-10). "Microsoft Implements 'Clearflow' Traffic Artificial Intelligence in Live Maps". Marshable Social Networking News. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
- ^ Sterling, Greg (2008-04-10). Four Year Effort Culminates In “Clearflow” Traffic on Microsoft Live Search Maps”. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
- ^ Microsoft ClearFlow aims to get drivers out of jams". electronista (2008-04-10). Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
- ^ FOXNews.com - Pentagon Bans Google Earth From Military Bases - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News
- ^ Multimap :: Blog » Blog Archive » A new and improved Multimap…
- ^ Virtual Earth / Live Maps: Live Maps is back in the UK!
- ^ Virtual Earth / Live Maps: Safari and iPhone get the Birds Eye Treatment
- ^ http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/download/newsroom/msn/WLLocalRG.doc
- ^ Bug 15120 - Offender Locator page does not load (Windows Live Maps mashup)
- ^ System requirements for Virtual Earth 3D (Beta)
[edit] External links
[edit] Live Search Maps
[edit] Official Team Blogs
- Virtual Earth Platform Blog
- Official Virtual Earth Team Blog
- Virtual Earth For Government Team Blog
- Virtual Earth 3D Team Blog
[edit] Developers resources
- Via Virtual Earth - Resource for Live Search Maps developers
- MSDN MapPoint Center - Official developer center for Virtual Earth and MapPoint Web Services
[edit] ASP.NET
- Web.Maps.VE - The industries First ASP.NET AJAX Virtual Earth Mapping Server Control. This control allows map events to be handled from within Server-Side .NET code without Postbacks; completely eliminating the requirement to use JavaScript. A full JavaScript API is also available to allow fully customized implementations.
[edit] Other
- Flash Earth - Compares satellite images from Virtual Earth with other mapping websites such as Google Maps, and Yahoo Maps
- Bird's Eye Tourist - Links to "bird's-eye" images
- Earthcities.flappie.nl - Birth's Eye Cities in MSN Virtual Earth in Belgium and The Netherlands
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