James Fee GIS Blog

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 [...]

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So what does it actually mean?  Adding Virtual Earth tiles to ArcGIS Desktop/Explorer?  First off, this isn’t a free service.  The ArcGIS Online Premium Service: Virtual Earth Maps Collection will cost you.  How much?  Not a clue.  I’m sure it will be at a price point that will make some jaws drop and others will [...]

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I’m normally not a big blogger of press releases, but I know the crowd that reads this blog will be very interested.  I’ll follow up more later today with some thoughts about what this might mean for all of us.
Microsoft Virtual Earth to Be Offered With ESRI’s ArcGIS Online Services

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It looks like the Virtual Earth ASP.NET control has finally been released.  Now no longer .NET developers have to worry about their JavaScript and can focus on pure .NET.  Combined with other .NET technology we could see some very immersive Virtual Earth solutions integrated into existing .NET code.

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Chris Pendleton notes on his blog that Microsoft has released trueSpace for Virtual Earth 3D for free.  I think most of us thought this would be the eventual result of Microsoft’s acquisition of Caligari so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
I’ll be honest in that I’ve never used Caligari tools, only SketchUp and [...]

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The ArcGIS Sever Development Blog says that the ArcGIS JavaScript API is now available to the public. As was mentioned before, it is freely available for anyone to use. You can of course also use the extenders for Virtual Earth and Google Maps if the ESRI JavasScript client isn’t what you are looking [...]

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Microsoft is smartly asking governmental agencies to publish their satellite and aerial imagery though Virtual Earth.
GoVE supports the data sharing goals of many public sector organizations by providing a free publishing service. Through GoVE, your taxpayer-funded information will be provided on a free, open access web site that benefits taxpayers, government officials, your corporate tax [...]

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So it has finally happened.
Today, I’m happy to announce the release of the new Google Earth Browser Plug-in, which brings the full power of Google Earth to the web, embeddable within your own web site. Driven by an extensive JavaScript API, you can control the camera; create lines, markers, and polygons; import 3D models from [...]

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Steve Lombardi and Chris Pendleton have both blogged about the new release of Microsoft Virtual Earth (and Live Maps). Steve sums it up:
This ended up being a much bigger release than originally planned including three full sprints of development. As always the changes visible in the user interface only scratch the surface of the [...]

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Microsoft Virtual Earth - MapCruncher has its own webpage and a commercial license so commercial users can now use the product. You can download the MapCruncher beta here.
What is weird is that I’ve got both the MSR MapCruncher and the new Virtual Earth MapCruncher installed now and they both seem to be the same [...]

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I’ve been getting a demonstration ready to go for a client using MapDotNet Server (MDNS) and figured it was a great time to update to the latest version. Version 6.5 was released December 17, 2007 and is a huge update. Improvements include:

Now uses Microsoft’s Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
Support for the November CTP of [...]

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I love using Virtual Earth because the imagery is so great compared to Google’s (at least in the areas I’m interested in). The reason why is the UltraCamX imagery that Microsoft uses. LiveSide.net has a small window into the UltraCam and how impressive its results are.

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Sure you can use the Xbox360 controller, or the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator to navigate the 3D Virtual Earth globe, but anyone can do that. The real fun is using your Wii Remote to control the 3D Globe.
Video: Wiimote Interface for Virtual Earth

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Brian Flood has a detailed post describing some of the new features of the latest Arc2Earth beta where it can embed Virtual Earth’s 3D globe in ArcMap. Now Arc2Earth has benefits beyond just creating web mapping from ArcGIS, but creating layouts that include 3D views (check out this screen shot to see what this [...]

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I just got this tidbit of information from a friend who talked to Ed Katibah (lead Program Manager for SQL Spatial).
Spatial datatype, methods and indexes will be supported equally on all SQL Server editions (Express, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise) at no extra charge. That means anyone who wants to use the SQL Server 2008 [...]

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