I attended a Microsoft Virtual Earth Roadshow today at the Denver Tech Center. The targeted audience was government and public sector developers, decision makers, designers and system architects. I was pleasantly surprised to find a capacity crowd of roughly 75 participants.
The morning overview spoke of Virtual Earth as a platform for geospatial collaboration, specifically mentioning that they were not trying to compete with ESRI. The team emphasized the role of GIS tools for data creation and maintenance, outlining the platform capabilities of Virtual Earth and carefully stating that it is not an application.
Much of the discussion revolved around available data and the speed at which the platform operates. Microsoft has invested hundreds of millions of dollars on geospatial data to solve that ever-present pain point with GIS. They’re committed to constant data updates with no imagery older than 24 months, and quarterly updates to road data. The highly scalable IT infrastructure for the service promises sub-second response times for all transactions.
A few interesting mentions about planned enhancements were leaked during the presentation.
- In the upcoming release of SQL Server ’08, there will be links to the Virtual Earth platform.
- Metadata about imagery capture dates will be exposed in the next-generation SDK.
- The next SDK will include exposure of elevation, with X,Y and Z coordinates.
- Support for the Mac Safari browser will be added with the next release
- Simulation that harnesses Microsoft Flight Simulator technology will add the capability to simulate seasons and time of day into the view
- The integration of street views that supply a great deal of realism at the street level (with faces and license plates automatically blurred) will be included.
The flexibility of the SDK for delivery to the desktop, web, mobile or enterprise was highlighted through multiple customer case studies from Microsoft business partners. The Visual Fusion Client from IDV Solutions is one platform extension that has spawned many interesting demos. Be sure to test drive their US Demographics Visualizer with an impressive custom user interface. MapDotNet was another business partner that was mentioned for their extension to the Virtual Earth platform. Their Virtual City of Miami parcel information system puts a great deal of information and functionality at your fingertips.
I was greatly impressed by the functionality in the demo sites. A few showed integration of real time data such as GPS coordinates of vehicles or the integration of live video feeds within the view window. There were also sites where the views were controlled by different levels of permissions, unlocking good collaboration functionality targeted toward job function.
According to presenters, we should see the Virtual Earth Version 6 SDK functionality next week. I continue to be impressed by Microsoft’s work on the data and interface with their focus squarely on enterprise customers. They continue to innovate and enhance the visual experience of the platform, with a strong focus on 3D. They’re clearly a good business partner for companies wishing to deliver enterprise geospatial applications and add value to this platform.
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Glad you enjoyed the roadshow and really appreciate your great write-up. Would like to make sure that we are not conveying inaccurate information which, apparently, we have somewhat. From your bulleted list above: metadata, street views and simulations of time/seasons are not features coming with the next release. Apologies for whatever statements were made that caused the confusion.