Earthware Blog

Here at Earthware we are always keen to drive more value from the VScapes 3d property modelling presentations, completed for our property development clients. So when we heard about the new web page exporter for Google’s 3d modelling application Sketchup, we immediately saw its application to building projects.

The exporter is much more basic than the 3d model viewer from 3dVia we have previously shown on the blog but it has one advantage, you don’t need to install anything extra to see the model its works in any normal web browser!

Its really easily to use and as you can see for yourself below its pretty effective.

To read more about using the Sketchup web exporter plugin see this video tutorial. The exporter is a beta release and we would love to see more functionality in future including 360 rotation and basic zooming, hopefully the best is yet to come!

This is just another way for our clients to present their building projects adding to the established Vscapes products including videos, Google Earth models and 3d PDFs.

With government claims that most people back today’s wind farm announcements, and the Guardian citing a new NOP poll showing 80% favour their use and 64% are happy to live within 5km of a development,

Why does it still take so long to push through planning?

Residents seem to be unable to visualise new developments and feel pushed out of the planning process.  In the recent example of a proposed farm in Stonish Hill, a ‘Vscapes’ presentation (virtual landscape) for us non techies, was used to clearly engage local residents and offer an accurate depiction of the proposed development, for more info click here. Earthware, the company commissioned to prepare the presentation, created scale 3D models and then embed these with Google Earth, allowing navigation around the proposed development, and demonstrating accurate views from any location.

If the government are going to reach their stated targets, further support and more efficient processes like that used in the Stonish Hill wind farm will come to the forefront in the mind set of both local planning authorities, but perhaps more pertinently with developers, as long drawn out applications result in lower ROI, but with no major increase in government funding these additional costs would have to be raised by customers through higher bills.

A recent Sustainable Development commission report cited community engagement and environmental impacts as two key factors in the future success of wind power development in the UK, and with many applications being rejected much like the proposal for the Drummuir Estate wind farm, declined as Lord Gill said there was "no substance" to the council’s submission on the cumulative impact of the proposal, and with the 2020 deadline outlined by the government it is pertinent for developers to take notice of the added value a Vscapes presentation offers.

Many of us in the UK are used to seeing MultiMap’s maps on company websites.  They have been more or less the "de facto" web site mapping choice in the UK for years.

I’m sure most of us who are familiar with MultiMap associate them with the very simple, not very exciting, static maps where you have to reload a page to move the map or zoom, as the screen shot shows below:

But how many of you know they actually have a much more up to date mapping API with all the features of a typical web 2.0 mapping solution and a few unique features?

It seems MultiMap have been busy over the last few years. Unfortunately not many of their clients seem to have taken advantage of the new API so most of us have missed out experiencing it for ourselves.

So What’s Different About The MultiMap API?

Multimap have a few unique features to help developers get their mapping projects out of the door much quicker that are not found in many competitors mapping APIs for example:

• Built in browser compatibility testing and handling
  This gives you a quick way to check compatibility and presents a static map solution to non compatible browsers
• Coverage check before panning / zooming
  This allows a developer to check the availability of imagery before allowing the users to pan or zoom – really useful to stop users zooming in too far
• Built-in ‘right mouse click’ context menus
  Allowing developers to quickly create their own custom context menus
• Built-in client side pushpin clustering
  This can be used when you have lots of overlapping icons and has two options for how to display the overlapping pushpins
• Client side filtering of pushpins
  You can filter pushpins quickly and simply using this built in feature
• Map pan limiting
  A much requested feature for Microsoft Virtual Earth is already built into MultiMap’s API allowing developers to keep users within a specific boundary.
• Draggable pushpins
  A built in method to make pushpins draggable
• Tabbed Infoboxes
  This allows you to quickly create tabs within the map popup ‘info’ boxes – very nice for situations where you have lots of data to display
• Innovative web services
  There are a number of webservices you can use with the API including searching by travel distance / duration, searching along routes, carbon emission calculation and loads more.
• Clever imagery selection
  MultiMap’s user interface has some very usable features including previews of mapping styles with roads on and off

Take a good look at all these features and more at the MultiMap API demos page.

What’s MultiMap’s Future?

As some of you may know MultiMap were bought by Microsoft last year who of course have their own mapping API Virtual Earth. What does this mean for MultiMap?

In the short term it means MultiMap now have access to the brilliant imagery including birdseye photography, that Virtual Earth offers. It seems that Microsoft have made a commitment to continue developing the MultiMap API alongside Virtual Earth as an alternative solution and as you can see from its developer features quite an attractive alternative.

However what the long term plan for MultiMap and Virtual Earth is, I don’t think anyone knows quiet yet but it would be great to see some of MultiMap’s innovative features make it into the next Virtual Earth release.

Summing it all up

As you can see MultiMap’s API has some really neat features making it one of the most developer focused mapping API’s available. I encourage you at least to go and have a play with their demos.

Earthware, as specialists in bespoke Virtual Earth implementations, would love to see some of their features get built into Virtual Earth, especially the much requested clustering, pan limiting and coverage data functionality. Also MultiMap’s web services set a real challenge to other providers in terms of functionality that we would love to see ported to Virtual Earth / MapPoint web services.

Recent research by the Estate Agency Academy has found that estate agency has moved online. Maybe this goes some way to explain the influx of articles in magazines for estate agents (for examples see Estate Agency News, May 2008 and June 2008 editions and eafocus, May 2008 edition) discussing how their website is a crucial tool, more than paper marketing, in attracting customers to their agency over their competition, as the internet is fast becoming the first port of call when looking for new property.

So what are the key points to remember when developing a value adding Estate Agent website?

· The home page is your shop window. It should express your company’s values and personality and sell your brand.

· Be consistent throughout the site using your branding and your company’s key messages.

· Have a property search tool prominently placed on the home page so customers can find a property quickly and with as few clicks as possible.

· Show search results on a map.

· Provide a choice of how the property can be viewed. For example, photos, brief summaries of property details, full detail listings or aerial imagery of the property and the locality.

· Aim to inform the customer. Be honest and do not try to hide defects.

· Provide a choice of how the customer can request further information. For example, contact the agency directly by telephone or email, request property detailed be emailed to the customer, download the particulars direct from the website, request a call back from the agency or have notifications of new properties added to site emailed directly to the customers inbox.

· Ensure the website works in all browsers and with all connection speeds.

· Consider how to drive traffic to your website. For example, pay per click, increase natural Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or register your properties on property portals.

The main aim is to stand out against the competition. At Earthware, we have been approached by a number of clients who wanted to know how we could help them with their property mapping and therefore, go some way to differentiating their website from all the rest. After seeing how our interactive mapping solution for Estate Agents works, they became convinced of the value the maps could having in achieving some of the key points the magazines have been talking about. In fact, Georges Verdis, of London estate agency London Executive who have implemented the mapping in their website, has commented on the difference it has made: “We have won instructions directly as a result, our site traffic has increased by 50%, our homepage Google Rank has gone from 2 to 4 and our map page has a Google rank of 5.” What the magazines are saying is true: a top quality website really can make a massive difference to your business and we believe that mapping is core to this.

For more information about how we can help you with your website visit www.earthware.co.uk or contact us at info@earthware.co.uk.

(Review taken from articles by Bob North in Estate Agency News, May 2008, Mark Masiak in eafocus, May 2008 and Peter Knight in Estate Agency News, June 2008)

This is what John Hanke, head of the Google Earth Unit said in an article published on the Financial Times website entitled “Way to go? Mapping looks to be the web’s next big thing”. Does this explain why, as the article also states, “a map is about to become the interface to many things people do on the internet”. The big names in mapping products are racing to become the one to provide the interface for these maps and are even driving city streets to collect street level information. Some are even designing and building special cameras and flying over cities to gather 3D images.

The article explores the upcoming potential takeovers of Navteq by Nokia and TeleAtlas by TomTom and what that is likely to mean. It proposes that there is a ‘3D arms race’ in progress with Microsoft and Google competing to own this space (see link for how Earthware is using 3D models in Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth). The article, and contributors such as John Hanke, Head of the Google Earth unit and Erik Jorgensen from Microsoft explore how the combination of technologies such as 3d and mobile phones will shape the internet usage and see mapping make searching a more visual experience, especially when cross selling products.

So what is Earthware’s view? We very much agree with the premise of the article that:

· Maps provide a concrete visual representation of a context and,

· Maps allow the user to go to one place and find all the information they could want to know about it, providing a one-stop-shop.

At Earthware we are already seeing the benefits mapping solutions bring to the user. Our mapping solution for the property market has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of our clients’ website as well as the users experience as they search for property (see www.london-executive.com or www.wowproperty.co.uk for examples). With the current development of our mapping solution for the travel market (to be released later this year) we expect to see mapping solutions in all geographically based market places in the coming years, proving the value of mapping across a number of market places.

The possibilities are nearly endless for mapping and mapping products especially with new technology expanding in terms of GPS availability on phones and cameras etc. The development in mapping technologies we are seeing now are just the beginning and to be honest where it could go simply makes the mind boggle!

To read the article in full and discover just some of the mapping possibilities of the not too distance future see Financial Times and click here for more information on Earthware’s interactive mapping

Using details from a local planning application for a proposed wind farm, Earthware provided a Vscapes presentation to aid in the application showing a 3d scale virtual representation of the completed site in Google Earth including support structures and access roads.

To download the Google Earth file containing this project and experience the development yourself please click here, you will need to install Google Earth before viewing this file by clicking here.

We are pleased to say that the outcome of the application was successful, and the Vscapes presentation was praised as an effective tool to present and understand the proposed development.

As part of this video, 3D models of wind turbines and a local structure were built to scale to give a real world comparison between the sizes of each.

We at Earthware believe that this style of presentation can be highly effective for a range of environmental planning or pre-visualisation, as it accurately shows how a future structure will appear in the environment and the visual effect it will have on the landscape.  This has been previously demonstrated with our background in visualisations for off-plan property developments.

For more information about how Vscapes can help your planning process visit www.earthware.co.uk/vscapes or call us on +44 (0)845 642 9880.