Live Platform: Deep Dive on Microsoft Virtual Earth

To be honest, I do not think that this was much of a Deep Dive. It was more like a technical overview of the new features of Virtual Earth 6.2. However I still think it was a good session.

In version 6.2 of Virtual Earth they are releasing what is called “Virtual Earth Web services”. They seem to be just like the Mappoint web services, but with a slightly different interface. The services offer the possibility to receive map images, routing information, search information and geocoding through a SOAP interface. This allows me to make look-ups of addresses in C# code instead of JavaScript code. For me there is potential for improvements of my existing Virtual Earth code.

He also showed a demo where he used the new spatial data types in SQL2008 to show aggregated information based on geographical location. This was indeed an interesting demo, later when I talked to him he mentioned that a few report engine developers were working on ways to develop report- and BI tools for aggregation over geographical areas.