Two people doing their own thing.

Microsoft Certified Partner Soul Solutions
Author: Soul Solutions Created: Monday, 29 October 2007
Virtual Earth news, projects, samples and tips

By Soul Solutions on Sunday, 27 January 2008

BronwenWeeGo.jpgWe've had a late addition to our user group tour...Gold Coast .Net.  We'll be visiting these guys on the 21st February, venue TBA.  Will add some links and details as they come to hand.

Updated schedule can be found HERE

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By Soul Solutions on Thursday, 24 January 2008

BronwenWeeGo.jpgNext Tuesday, 29th we're off to Hobart to present 2 sessions on SQL Spatial with Virtual Earth.  We're lucky to be the 2nd presentation at the newly formed Hobart SQL Server Usergroup during the day followed by the Hobart .Net at night.

Details for the session:

In this visually interactive talk we explore the new spatial data types, functions and indexes directly related to the real world using the interactive browser based Virtual Earth control. We focus on the new Geography data type providing an overview of the new functionality as directly applied to mapping. This includes the storage of points, polylines and polygons as well as real world tasks like effective rendering to the map, geofencing and proximity searches. We explore the power of union and buffering. Finally we examine the new index specifically built for fast ... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Wednesday, 23 January 2008

johnWeeGo.jpgIn part 2 of this series, Derek Chan shows how to integrate the Mappoint Web Service platform on a Virtual Earth map.

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/InvokingserversidecodeusingAJAXPart2.aspx

DerekJan08Article.jpg

If you recall part 1 introduced the concepts of using a httphandler to communicate between server side code and Virtual Earth.

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/InvokingserversidecodeusingAJAX.aspx

... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Wednesday, 16 January 2008

johnWeeGo.jpgI spoke with Rony Ledany the Managing Director of Terra Pixel about their new product ImagePatch this week. As you may know the Virtual Earth API allows for custom tile layers to be added over the top of the stock road or aerial tiles built in. The difficulty is how you source the data, prepare and integrate into your system.

ImagePatch.jpg

I asked Rony a few quick questions:

John: So Rony, what is ImagePatch?

Rony: ImagePatch.com Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Sunday, 13 January 2008

BronwenWeeGo.jpgThis week we arrive in Melbourne to present our 3rd in a series of 8 talks on SQL Spatial with Virtual Earth.  So far there's just under 100 people registered so should be a great turn out.  If you're interested and haven't signed up all the details are below. 

SQL Spatial with Virtual Earth 

15 January - Melbourne - Register HERE

In this visually interactive talk we explore the new spatial data types, functions and indexes directly related to the real world using the interactive browser based Virtual Earth control. W ... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Tuesday, 8 January 2008

BronwenWeeGo.jpgTime has flown by and we start the first leg of the SQL Spatial with Virtual Earth User Group tour this week. So for those in Canberra and Adelaide, watch out...we're coming to town!

Looking forward to meeting a few virtual friends in person.  So if you're around and want to catch up and say hello let us know.

Details and registration for the 2 events are:

SQL Spatial with Virtual Earth

In this visually interactive talk we explore the new spatial data types, functions and indexes directly related to the real world using the interactive browser based Virtual Earth control. We focus on the new Geography data type providing an overview of the new functionality as directly applied to mapping. This includes the storage of points, polylines and polygons as well as real world tasks like ef ... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Saturday, 5 January 2008

BronwenWeeGo.jpgJohn and I sat the Virtual Earth Beta Exam 071-544 - TS: Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.0, Developing last year.  As it's a beta exam you don't find out if you passed for about 2 months.  This morning we checked the Prometric site and discovered we both passed .

Also, congrats to Derek Chan, who also sat and passed.  Anyone else got their results yet?  Let us know...

By Soul Solutions on Sunday, 16 December 2007

johnWeeGo.jpgDell has some great Christmas deals out and while looking at their catalogue I noticed they have some wireless xbox 360 controllers for windows. I had always wanted to pick one of these up and now wireless - even better!

360wireless.jpg

It was dead simple to install, little peice of software on the supplied CD and then plug in the usb dongle. Instantly I can now fly around, badly mind you, in Virtual Earth 3D.

You have 3 controls, the LT and RT (trigger fingers at the front of the controller) control zooming in and out. The multidirectional pad in the top left (left thumb) pans the map while the multidirectional pad on the right (for the right thumb) controls the point of view, rotating and tilting the map. The "A" button puts everyth ... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Wednesday, 28 November 2007

johnWeeGo.jpgI am very proud of the growing community around Virtual Earth. In only six weeks since it was released the community site that I run, http://www.viawindowslive.com/ has had ten articles submitted using the latest version 6 of the API.

The articles range from getting started / whats new to using Traffic or Weather data, extending the infobox or using other technologies like SQL 2008. I have enjoyed reading all of them:

  1. Invoking server side code using AJAX and .ashx handlers
  2. What's new in Version 6 Routing
  3. ... Read More »

By Soul Solutions on Wednesday, 28 November 2007

johnWeeGo.jpgDerek Chan has published a great introduction to communicating with Virtual Earth from server side code. The article is a good read to understand the basics of ajax before proceeding onto more complex examples or using asp.net ajax extensions. Read the article here:

http://www.viawindowslive.com/Articles/VirtualEarth/InvokingserversidecodeusingAJAX.aspx

Thats makes 10 articles for Virtual Earth 6, well done!