Bagikan melalui

Virtual Earth 3D

  • Artikel

Microsoft has just released Virtual Earth 3D which complements our local.live.com map offering by running directly in the browser window.  If you are familiar with Google Earth, this is a similar concept but with more integration with browser search and of course without the desktop application.

After I installed the plugin for IE7, I checked out a few locations like London and San Francisco (below).  I see this becoming a really useful tool once more and more buildings get mapped in 3D.  At the moment most of the big cities have portions of buildings mapped in 3D - by the looks of it they are creating a 3D model and then applying a skin from photos of the building, as can be witnessed on the Tower of London.

Update:  Currently the following cities are covered San Francisco, San Jose, California, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Detroit, Phoenix, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas. So make sure you check them out first. More are being added soon.

 

 

What I really liked was Mount Everest (below) which showed me the type of view you could experience should you be brave enough to climb to the summit.

 

Make sure you experience this for yourself! (search for a city then click 3D)

Learn more about 3D maps

 

The only question I have remaining is that when you line up Virtual Earth 3D against Google Earth, which is the more "Web 2.0"?

 

Technorati tags: Virtual Earth

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Video: Virtual Earth 3D Trailer Live Search is sneaking up behind Google in terms of relevance all the

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I think you might be in hybrid mode.  In that mode it'll map things like roads and international boundaries on top of the map itself.  This could be what's happening here.

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2006
    this product is exceptionally good yet another great job by MS

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2006
    If you spin that view to your left (clockwise) you'll notice a series of numbers in the picture on the Southeast side of the mountain.  Pretty funny. :-) -Tim Barrett

  • Anonymous
    December 28, 2006
    I like MS Virtual Earth. You may be interested in checking this out: http://jayz3dimg.blogspot.com