License Microsoft Virtual Earth Imagery for Your Maps
ESRI and Microsoft announced that Virtual Earth would be available through the ArcGIS Online Premium Service a couple weeks ago and today Microsoft took that announcement one step further.
Starting today you can license Virtual Earth UltraCam (proprietary) aerial photography without having to license the Virtual Earth platform. This is great for offline use, wrapping your own client or creating an interface that allows for deeper zooming than the VE platform does today. You can purchase the photography through 2 vendors - Mapmart and i-Cubed.
Of course ESRI users will probably prefer to use the ArcGIS Online service (given how easy it will be to integrate into your existing projects), but now everyone has the same access and the freedom to use any software (Photoshop, Illustrator, gvSIG, MapInfo, AutoCAD, etc) they wish.
The only caveat is that this is the UltraCam imagery, not everything so you may not have anything available if you live outside of 200+ cities that have coverage. Of course if you do have it available, then there isn’t anything better as UltraCam blows away everything else. Microsoft’s purchase of Vexcel has really been very smart for them and this is what you can do when you own the data. I can buy UltraCam imagery for Tempe, AZ for about $4,000 from MapMart.
You can't afford one yourself, but you can use the data captured from it.
Thanks for the tip off James. I know some clients who will want to make use of this. The prices seem reasonable to me: $4,500 for the Toronto area.
Kinda disappinted. I KNOW that they shot Ultracam in a particular AOI I’m looking at, but nothing is available. They really need to open up the libraries outside major metro areas.
JW,
What aoi are you looking for? It’s possible the area may have been shot but is still in process. There really aren’t any “libraries” outside of major metro areas to open up.
what does “open up” mean?
I’m looking for an area of NW CO/SW WY.
JW: I’m pretty sure there is zero Ultracam coverage there. I haven’t seen any Ultracam outside of major cities.
Well “open up” means there isn’t any imagery there from VE. Someone may have flown it with an Ultracam but not MS to my knowledge and my knowledge of where VE is flying is *really* good.
I know that some of NW Colorado has been flown for a couple of oil companies in Denver with an ADS-40 in the last 2-3 years because I worked on some of that in my last job.
Sorry to disappoint about the spiffy UltraCam VE imagery.
I’m not sure how much help this can be because the aerial imagery of virtual earth is very old and in some cases its almost like 2-3 years old. One of our clients wanted to use to add their own aerial imagery in to their virtual earth application - because its very old.
just my two cents..
UltraCam is just a digital camera… Same (worse if you ask me) as Intergraph DMC, Leica ADS40/52, DiMAC, etc.
If you need NEW images from any area, just call any mapping company with a plane that operates one of those aerial digital cameras… You can decide the scale (resolution -ground sample distance-). The price can be a bit higher but not that much… just ask for a quotation.
Microsoft didn’t purchase Vexcel for the UltraCam camera (of course). For their Virtual Earth project they just contract aerial mapping companies to fly and take the pictures, and these mapping companies happen to own the UltraCam camera… that’s all (I bet some images come from the Intergraph DMC)
Jud,
No Intergraph imagery involved because the imagery is processed with Vexcel/MS software all the way through.
Why do you say the UC is worse than the other cameras?
Adit,
I’d have to argue slightly with the term “very old” when you say some of the imagery is 2-3 years old.
Virtual Earth has processed 200+ cities in the last couple of years at 15cm resolution and to my knowledge no one can come close to that. There is some revisiting on the schedule but given that VE will cover several hundred cities and there are still new cities to be added, it’s a bit tough to make everyone happy all at once.
Yodel,
I think I agree with you on that especially when we consider all over USA.
What do you think about birds eye ? I think its not as latest as aerial.
regards
Yodel,
I don’t understand your point, what processes?, an image is just an image, and Vexcel output image formats are standard (same as DMC) . What Vexcel/MS software? Vexcel didn’t have any photogrammetric software to make orthophotos and mosaics (this is what VE or Google use). Before they were acquired by MS, they even bought the photogrammetric software developed by ISM from Canada (developers of the photogrammetric ArcGIS PurVIEW extension ), but they didn’t manage to make any further development…
The image base of the new digital frame cameras like UltraCam or DMC is too short. This affects to the Z accuracy when you do mapping to create the base maps. And the Ultracam is 7500 pixels wide vs the 7680 of the DMC.
Regards
Jud,
It sounds like maybe you have a bit of outdated information.
I can definitely tell you that orthos are being made in house for VE. MS has not let things sit idle since buying Vexcel.
I can’t speak to the lineage of the original software but UltraMap does all the processing: http://www.microsoft.com/ultracam/ultramap/default.mspx
FYI- the UCD image footprint is 11500 x 7500 pixels, even cooler the UltrCamX is 14400 x 9400 pixels and they’re all being used.
Hopefully that updates some information.
Thaks for the information Yodel,
FYI UltraMap was released in May 08… wow they work really fast!
UCDX is better for stereo feature extraction of course
I just wanted to say that MS VE images are just plain images (UCD or DMC) and can be produced with any orthophoto generation software like Infoterra PixelFactory, Intergraph PixelPipe, the new MS Vexcel UltraMap, etc. There are no magic processes in the orthophoto production.
Regards
Has anyone found a copy of the license agreement? I’m wondering if this has restrictions on government use like the Bird’s Eye imagery does.
“Bird’s eye imagery of the United States may not be used by a government entity without our separate written approval. If you have questions about this restriction, please contact maplic@microsoft.com “
(To get that written approval, you have to have an existing Pictometry contract)
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/product/terms.html
The new UltraMap 2008 is not out yet either, just announced.
MS has been flying the X exclusively for about 2 years.
Brett, you can find their license on the beta website http://www.kasview.com/digital.aspx sidebar. This is for non birds-eye, BE is handled completely different
Can also see what projects MS haven’t updated but have been flown there.