Via Virtual Earth Blog

It has been reported that the old url to access the Version5 javascript for Virtual Earth no longer works. This is effecting sites worldwide.

The correct way to reference the Version 5 javascript is:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=5"></script>

If you have been effected a forum thread has been started here

With the launch of silverlight yesterday I was digging around and found this viewer for Virtual Earth by Greg Schechter. It does use the 1.1 alpha of silverlight. It gives some interesting ideas for where Virtual Earth could be headed. Certainly the demo of the performance of silverlight compared to javascript for processing showed a significant increase. This could be very useful.

And of course on the gamer front check this out by Andy Beaulieu and shoot down some UFO"s over Birdseye images.

John.

I subscribe to all the VE blogs and recently the posts about updated imagery has been more and more frequent.

The latest is here and for myself downunder we saw three updates, Canberra, Newcastle and Uluru:

A big thank you to the efforts of Derek Chan who posted his third VE article today (he actually had it ready weeks ago but had to wait for Mr Bottleneck here at VVE ;) )

The 3 articles are all relivant to Version 5 of Virtual Earth and deal with the Mini Map, debugging javascript and now custom pins in routes.

All these can now be found in our articles section.

If you have something to contribute send us an email.

John (The bottleneck)

The announcement details the integration of Intermap Technologies" highly accurate 3D elevation data into Virtual Earth starting with Great Britain.

"This is a fundamental change for the industry as Microsoft raises the bar for accuracy and realistic 3-D experiences," said Eric DesRoche, senior vice president of automotive and consumer electronics at Intermap. "While an accurate visualization application is important to deliver to consumers, our relationship with Microsoft begins to pave the way for the delivery of additional value-added products for the business and consumer markets within Great Britain, Europe and the U.S."

This week we have a had a few additions to our Virtual Earth Gallery, the US Open map from Naviciti shows us how useful Virtual Earth can be for an event while ShareMyRoutes.com show us what a second generation VE site can look and feel like. The is a awesome site that every VE should take a look at, you will take away at least two or three well implimented ideas. The site is running Version 5 of Virtual Earth.

If you have a Virtual Earth site that you want people to know about, submit it to the gallery.

The ViaVE Gallery

We released the long awaited article on clustering Virtual Earth with the latest Version 5 of the API today.

This third installment covers the upgrade to version 5 and reworks the Javascript as ASP.NET AJAX classes

The pins load content on demand and a new shape differential logic removes the flicker effect from previous articles

If you have an article to submit send us an email to articles@viavirtualearth.com

Some kind sole posted a great piece of sample code showing how to enable drawing of points, lines, polygons and even circles to the VE wiki.

http://www.viavirtualearth.com/wiki/Drawing-Tool+for+VE+v5.ashx

All you need to do is put the code into a htm file and js file and your away!

Great stuff, and remember to let me know who the contributor is, I promise the new wiki upgrade will keep track of the users that submit posts but for now include that in your entry.

John

Our friend and regular contributor Rob Blackwell has written a Getting Started with VE article for .NET Magazine.

If you prefer to do your reading the old fashioned way (on paper) then get your hands the latest issue.

Great work Rob!

Bronwen - Check out .NetRocks! for an interview with Rod McGovern on his experiences with Virtual Earth here http://www.dotnetrocks.com/<>