Earthware Blog

Bing Maps have just released their latest offering to web based digital mapping and it’s pretty impressive.

New features include tagged photos from Flickr which overlay the exact location on the Bing Maps Streetside imagery, putting a static image in context of it’s local surroundings enabling the user the to compare a location at different times of day as well as historically.

The transition of the imagery as you zoom in from space to the street side is seamless moving through road view, aerial view and then Bird’s Eye view before ‘landing’ you on the ground so you can walk  around the street. But it doesn’t stop there: Bing Maps are now starting to map the inside of buildings.

And, if you get bored of navigating around Earth (well just America so far), then look up to the sky and navigate your way through the planets and stars.

Seeing as Bing Maps is an interactive mapping experience, watch the man (well one of the men) behind these new features, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, and see for yourself what they can do. Our question is, will you be joining the (over)excited applauding by the end?

If you are interested in finding out more about online mapping and how you can use it please contact Earthware on 0845 642 9880 or email info@earthware.co.uk

Earthware is an entrepreneurial company specialising in developing online mapping solutions and websites using the latest technologies. Silverlight is proving to be the future direction of our company which is why we are looking for a developer with experience in this technology but with a hunger to learn more both here and in other technologies and to apply this throughout the planning, designing and development process. Other required skills include strong full life cycle Asp.net, C# and WCF, whilst experience with Ajax frameworks, XSLT / XML and unit testing is desirable.

If you fit this description and are interested in applying for the position please email your CV explaining how you meet our requirements and giving example projects/URLs to recruitment@earthware.co.uk.

All applicants must be eligible to work in the UK. No contact from agencies please.

At the inaugural Bing Maps User group in the UK, Jim Lynn from the BBC was invited to present on a project that he led at the BBC to explore how Bing Maps Silverlight can be used.  I am not a techie but found this a fascinating exploration into how Silverlight is transforming the online mapping experience.  As a synopsis, Jim spent nearly twelve months on different aspects of this project.  First, he created and loaded Ordnance Survey map tiles into Bing Maps Silverlight to enable deep zoom Ordnance Survey mapping. He then explored how you can integrate geographical based data and information into the maps using examples such as David Dimbleby’s “How We Built Britain” showing the video playing as the marker moves along a path on the map as the video shows him driving down a road.

Jim also separated the Ordnance Survey names layer from the map layer to enable the map to be rotated whilst the names remain horizontal on the page (no mean feat) and embedded deep zoom photographs at their correct geographical locations which cluster to avoid overlapping as you change zoom levels. These embedded photographs can also be ‘flipped over’ to reveal information about the place on the back. He also showed (for a small part of Britain) how the BBC archive can be displayed on a Bing Map.

If you want to talk about how your data/information/business can be brought to life using Bing Maps Silverlight, please contact Earthware for a chat.