Virtual Earth 3D Beta Launched

Lord Satri writes "Microsoft has announced the launch of Virtual Earth 3D. There are numerous screenshots to be seen, as well as a Google Earth comparison from Spatially Adjusted. You can read the Google Earth Blog on why he thinks it's not a threat to Google. C|Net's coverage and the official press release provide lots of concrete details of the product. You can also read more from the development side or see the CBS report on Virtual Earth 3D. My main gripe: Windows and Internet Explorer 6/7 only. From the official press release: 'When people visit Live Search, type a query into the search box and click the "Maps" tab, they get their search results in a map context that offers the option to explore the area using two-dimensional views (aerial and bird's-eye) or three dimensional models with Virtual Earth 3D. This new technology compiles photographic images of cities and terrain to generate textured, photorealistic 3-D models with engineering level accuracy.'"

Not a threat, but VERY cool

Every once in a while, Microsoft does something right ... or at least releases something cool. When I plugged in my address (which is kind of in the middle of nowhere), up popped 3 different viewing angles of my house. Pretty detailed shots too, and in one you could even see me mowing the lawn in the backyard! I had lots of fun with this one.

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Pretty detailed shots too, and in one you could even see me mowing the lawn in the backyard!

p.And this doesn't even concern you a little bit?

Re:Not a threat, but VERY cool

> p.And this doesn't even concern you a little bit?

I'm sure the picture shows him safely wearing his tin-foil hat, so, temporarily at least, the forces of evil can't access his plans for world domination...

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There was a news story about it last night (can't remember the source). Anyhow, on the studio's gazillion-inch plasma display, it looked pretty cool.

Makes me wonder...

...how often Google Maps/Earth updates their satellite photos. When I zoom in on my place, I can see the house next door that was demolished 3+ years ago. The sad part: I like that house better than mine.

* * * * *

What happens if a big asteroid hits Ea

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Every once in a while, Microsoft does something right ... or at least releases something cool.

I think you meant to say: "Every once in a while Micro$oft copies someone else's idea and tries to get all the credit".
This plagiarism seems to be the only form

Re:Not a threat, but VERY cool

Every once in a while, Microsoft does something right ... or at least releases something cool. When I plugged in my address (which is kind of in the middle of nowhere), up popped 3 different viewing angles of my house. Pretty detailed shots too, and in one you could even see me mowing the lawn in the backyard! I had lots of fun with this one.

Actually, I think it is a threat. I use Live Local/Virtual Earth almost exclusively. Here's why (adapted from a post I wrote in a previous story that didn't get much attention):

• Live Local has better controls. It was the first to add mouse wheel scroll zooming, which Google Maps has added. (I don't mind the copying, though; the more the merrier!) I can't live without the middle-click, box zooming, though. From a globe view I can zoom to my house in a few seconds with Live Local's box zooming.
• Directions between arbitrary points: Right-click anywhere to select the From and To points to find directions. Google Maps requires that I type in addresses. Problem is that I don't know the address of Paradise point at Mt. Rainier National Park [live.com], and Google Maps can't seem to find it. Note that Yahoo Maps expands upon this by letting you add waypoints, but it's too slow for me.
• Bird's Eye view [birdseyetourist.com]. Images are taken from an airplane, so detail is awesome.
• I can perform up to 3 simultaneous map searches. This means I can see the locations of all Safeways, libraries, and CompUSAs on the same map [live.com]. Useful if you intend on going to multiple places when driving.
• Live Local's direction finding seems more capable than Google's. I can find directions from Glasgow, UK to Palermo, Italy [live.com].
• Live Local has better sharing features. You can create collections of places and share them on Live Local. This might be a silly example, but some friends visited Seattle recently and wanted suggestions on places to visit. I made a collection of places for them [live.com]. You can add text, images, and URLs to places on a collection, and viewers of a collection can generate driving directions between any of its places (as well as any other arbitrary point). Google has auto-saving of locations (which was added after Live Local's collections), but as far as I can tell, it does not permit sharing or customization of locations.
• UI is more customizable. Live Local's panels are removable, yielding more visible map area than Google Maps. You can't turn off the "example searches" pane in Google.

Of course it has downsides:

• Performance is worse than Google Maps. On my 1.7 GHz 512 MB RAM laptop, Live Local causes the fan to spin up far more often than Google Maps.
• Color scheme is uglier in some places (compare Tokyo road view in both Google and Live).
• Google Maps' satellite view is considerably more detailed and updated in some places, including Shanghai, Pyongyang, Ho Chi Minh City. MS appears to be countering this with Bird's Eye view, but the two are just not the same.
• I'm not sure all its features are supported in Firefox 1.5 and below; can someone confirm? But it does work in Firefox 2.0.

If you're interested in looking at satellite imagery, Google is the better choice. But if you want to find places and get directions to them, and share those plac

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This is NOT very cool.
Its google earth (which was cool, until everyone realized its no more use than google maps). On a web page. BUT as you have to download a whole heap of crap, that makes it no better than an activeX wrapper, for the Google earth API.

Windows only

I tried to test this but it is for IE explorer only. So Google wins by default.

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... for the 20% non-Windows, non-IE users out there, sure.

Re:Windows only

... for the 20% non-Windows, non-IE users out there, sure.

And for more than that. Half the time when I'm looking at something like this, I am doing so to send it to someone else or at least want the option of so doing. If there is a 20% failure rate every time I do that, well that is a significant problem, regardless of which browser I use.

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... for the 20% non-Windows, non-IE users out there, sure.

That happens to include a lot of the tech elite...

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Yeah, but we're the TOP 20%. And we won't let you forget that :-)

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Wow, that's so 2005, IE now has under 75% market share and falling. MSIE market share is even lower in Europe.

Linux Support?

I run Google Earth under Linux. Will this new offering provide an alternative? (Let me guess - NO WAY!)

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Hehe, well, according to some reports here and elsewhere, it barely even runs on IE. ;-)

Re: Mac Support?

I suspect unless I boot into WinXP I won't have this on OS X native either?

Me me me!

I want to try it, can someone post the direct link for the Linux client?

Or the torrent!

Please explain why Microsoft is threatened?

Why does Microsoft feel theatened by certain markets? I don't understand why they feel they have to compete with everything, even "markets" where there is little or no money to be made. How much money could Microsoft ever make from Virtual Earth? Why does Microsoft feel it has to compete in the games and music world when it is already making huge amounts of money selling software to 90 - 95% of the computer world?

Re:Please explain why Microsoft is threatened?

Bill Gates (and by extension I suspect much of Microsoft) is very worred about missing the "next big thing" and being left in the dust. The history is that IBM gravely under estimated the PC revolution and handed it over to Microsoft, so Microsoft doesn't want to get shafted like they did to IBM. I agree this particular application doesn't seem very important, but Microsoft may be concerned in general about losing ground as an applications service provider. Apparently this new thing is based on ActiveX so personally I hope it is an utter failure.

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But they are losing their cash cows to do it!

They were the ONLY game in town in the desktop and laptop market. Now Apple has a huge chunk, and Linux desktop use is growing and becoming more competitive. They have been left behind by install and update te

Re:Well said, but wrong.

IBM didn't get shafted, and MS didn't poison the King to become King. IBM did make a grave business error of not recognizing the direction of the market and collapsed. MS correctly predicted the future, and did well. MS doesn't want to make the same mistake IBM did, so it competes everywhere.

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There is a simple answer to your question...

When playing monopoly, are you content on owning half of the board when playing against 4 others? What if you never owned 3 of any of the pieces on the board, so you were never able to built those crazy hotels

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Why does Microsoft feel theatened by certain markets? I don't understand why they feel they have to compete with everything, even "markets" where there is little or no money to be made. How much money could Microsoft ever make from Virtual Earth? Why does

Navigation

After playing around with this this morning I can't quite get the hang of the grab and drag navigation. In photo mode (or bird's eye view I guess) it appears to limit the grab and drag range to the actual photo loaded into the frame, and the only way to move outside that is to load another photo by clicking in some kind of grid containing too-small-for-clarity thumbnails.

Maybe I'm wrong and didn't spend enough time with it, but that is a huge handicap, better photos or not. With Google Earth I can grab and drag to wherever. Half of what I want to find isn't tied to an address, it is much easier to find by following landmarks.

Some parts cool, others not

I see Virtual Earth as an application that excels in a select few areas, but in general has much less to offer.

For example, it has nifty texture mapped buildings for a number of places, but what about the majority? Conversely, Google Earth covers a large part of Earth in quite good detail, but Virtual Earth not even my capital city. Additionally, GE has a large community behind it now, and the layer features provides an extensibility that could be compared to the extensions in Firefox.

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I forgot about the layering that the GE community can provide. Want to bet how long it will be until someone makes a layer in GE that reads the virtual earth data and redisplays it? I'm not sure how the layers in GE work, but I bet someone just needs to h

I can't get it to work

tried it on an 32 bit XP system (SP2), under IE6, I downloaded and installed the App/ActiveX control and set local.live.com to be a Trusted Site... and still IT NO GO

Accuracy levels

"Engineering level accuracy?" What kind of vague marketing speak crap is that? To the millimeter? To the cm? To the meter? (If I hired an engineer to do a building, I'd probably want accuracy to the inch. Does it do that?)

Can someone please put this in terms of "Libraries of Congress" or "Volkswagens" so I have some sense of perspective??? Help!

You lucky ones...

After going through a huge number of windows it turns on that it cannot be installed in a spanish XP. So we'll have to wait (as usual) to try it. I hate this things... :(

Linux Version.

From the amount of groaning for a Linux version, whats stopping the development of a plugin-interface that is the same across browsers? Publish an RFC or get ECMA certification then get everyone to use it to the point that only Microsoft is not. Then mak

Either...

It seems to be working fine in FX 1.5. So either: 1) I'm on the wrong site or 2) It's only partially working in FX 1.5.

http://local.live.com/ [live.com] yes?

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It will allow you the 2D maps but the 3D features are a fully installed local program which IE calls.

Save yourself some time.

Just get the original blueprints from the Magratheans.

sdk

From the blog, The SDK is here: http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/ [live.com]

Seems to be clunky

It is not very responsive or quick to load compared to same environment with Google maps.

Great idea!

This new technology compiles photographic images of cities and terrain to generate textured, photorealistic 3-D models with engineering level accuracy.

I've been waiting AGES for something like this! Thank you Microsoft, for leading the way with new and innovative technology, yet again.

why?

so they're copying google 100% except that their version won't work on my mac.

oh my god, it hurts to think of all the wasted energy in reproducing something badly.

Hangs your Browser

IE 6 hangs with the plug-in on exit. Can't really see the "3D" features compared to Google earth buildings.

Canada, eh?

Just gave it a try. IE only, active X install (versus AJAX that google uses; wait, didn't MS start all the XMLHTTP stuff themselves?), which were annoying, but in the end, the quality of the satellite views for Nova Scotia (where I live) are an order of magnitude poorer than Google Earth.

So, IE Only, Poor Canada support. I'll pass for now.

Confusing just as any other Microsoft product

I like to give them a chance but this will be used as a toy then discarded. local.live.com and it's horrible 2 condition search criteria makes it unusable.

Wow. Microsoft is following google what's next?

Microsoft following Apple?

Wow...Not really

I'm really impressed by 6 year old blurry black and white photos where Google gives me fairly recent photos at about 3X the resolution in color. I live in the cuts, but it's not that bad. Arcata, CA

World wind

I like this one too.

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]

Flight Simulator integration

Why hasn't this been integrated into Microsoft's Flight Sim yet? You don't need to install 15GB worth of data, and the maps are always updated. Better graphics too I might add.

Opposite

...another tool to help the terrorists!

Actually it's just the opposite - they'll spend a few years going through Active X installations and the configuration screens and it will keep them out of our hair.

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Or Osama will release an audio tape stating he loves this new product and even was able to find an image of himself mowing his lawn. Government agencies around the world will spend a few years going through Active X installations and configuration screens

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It's called photogrammetry, and Microsoft did not come up with it, though they will no doubt be filing all sorts of horseshit patents pretty soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry [wikipedia.org]

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The fact that stuff like this comes out that requires Windows and IE is why I still run Windows and IE.

The fact that you still run Windows and IE is why stuff like this comes out that requires Windows and IE.

Re:Lost customer thread

<keanu>
Whoa.
</keanu>