http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Default.ashx VVE Articles Neil Roodyn - neil@roodyn.com http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Assets/ButtonLogo.gif http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/ en-US VVE John OBrien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/IETileFilters.ashx Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:50:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/IETileFilters.ashx#comments Internet Explorer offers several filters that can be applied in CSS to images. This Article is a fun look at how some different effects can be applied to Virtual Earth. Sergio Minicozzi http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/multipleviewV5.ashx Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:32:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/multipleviewV5.ashx#comments One possible application of Virtual Earth, other than the classic application of one instance, is the use of multiple instances of VE, inside one single page. With the last release of VE, Microsoft has introduced a new functionality about mouse and keyboard events. Specifically, you can use VEMap.AttachEvent Method, to synchronize one or more instance of VE with one principal instance. Derek Chan http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CustomizedRoutePushpins.ashx Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:55:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CustomizedRoutePushpins.ashx#comments Using Virtual Earth version 5.0, you can create driving routes with automatically generated pushpins along the route that contain the driving itinerary inside the pushpin bubbles.  After a VEMap.GetRoute call is made in Version 5.0, a VERoute object is returned.  The VERoute has itinerary directions but has no information as to the co-ordinate of the route pushpins and no access to their InfoBox descriptions.  This article will discuss how to manipulate these pushpins and generate your own version 5.0 route pushpins. Derek Chan http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/VEBrowserDebug.ashx Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:56:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/VEBrowserDebug.ashx#comments Tracing program execution and debugging code are two of the major challenges of developing JavaScript applications. These challenges are especially apparent in Virtual Earth, which is essentially a large obfuscated JavaScript library with limited documentation on available methods and no documentation on how the backend API works. An additional challenge when debugging Virtual Earth applications is deciphering all the CSS classes and HTML elements applied in order to display the Virtual Earth map. Fortunately, there are many available debugging tools that can be used to help you understand the back end of Virtual Earth applications. In this article, we will look at two popular debuggers for browsers that are compatible with Virtual Earth: the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar (for Internet Explorer) and Firebug (for Mozilla Firefox). Mo Majad http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FreeReverseGeoCoding.ashx Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:33:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FreeReverseGeoCoding.ashx#comments In this article Mo Majad shows how to impliment reverse geocoding in Virtual Earth. Reverse geocoding is the process where a latitude and longitude pair is used to calculate the physical address, this service is not part of virtual earth and is one of the most requested features. Derek Chan http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/MiniMap.ashx Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:24:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/MiniMap.ashx#comments The Virtual Earth 5.0 API includes a mini-map, which allows you to switch between road and hybrid display styles and shows you a zoomed out version of your current view. The purpose of the mini-map is to show you where the specific area that you are looking at is located within a larger geographic region (e.g. where a particular city is located within a state). In this article Derek show how to replace and customise your own Mini Map. John OBrien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering3.ashx Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:18:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering3.ashx#comments This article is part three in a series that explores the next generation clustering techniques for Virtual Earth. In this article I focus on upgrading to Virtual Earth 5 and using the latest Object Orientated approach to Javascript from ASP.NET AJAX. I show I better way to design your Javascript and introduce a shape differential to only add and remove shapes as required to the map. John OBrien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/V5InfoBoxStyles.ashx Sat, 26 May 2007 03:55:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/V5InfoBoxStyles.ashx#comments With the release of Version 5 of Virtual Earth we have been given the ability to have more control of the now officially named “info box” also known as the “pin popup” or “ero popup”. This Article explores how to do this and a few of the issues still remaining. Rob Blackwell http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WMS.ashx Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:09:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WMS.ashx#comments The Web Mapping Server (WMS) protocol was developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) as a standard for accessing maps over the Web. Microsoft Virtual Earth provides the ability to overlay your own maps and charts using MapCruncher and custom tile servers but does not yet support WMS directly. This article explains how to build a gateway that allows you to include WMS in your Virtual Earth mash-ups. John OBrien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering2.ashx Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:29:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering2.ashx#comments This article explores the next generation clustering techniques for Virtual Earth. We migrate to the newly release ASP.NET AJAX and migrate from vb.net to C#, we incorporate encoding of pin locations and use the power of popup content on demand to vastly reduce our data sent to the client and change our architecture significantly. John O'Brien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/MyGeoLand.ashx Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:41:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/MyGeoLand.ashx#comments Mygeoland.com is a minimalist location search for Australia. By offloading everything to the power of Virtual Earth it provides a simple, fast and fun way to find a street, suburb or place in Australia. In this article I explain how simple it really is as we build the site from the ground up with a few div tags and a handful of JavaScript. I will then touch on some really simply ways we can optimise such a site using free third party tools and server options. John O'Brien http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering.ashx Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:19:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Clustering.ashx#comments So you have a million houses, festivals or gnomes you want to display on VE, but when you display them all at once it is messy and slow. Why not try clustering them? Johannes Kebeck http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/TrafficData.ashx Mon, 31 Jul 2006 06:16:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/TrafficData.ashx#comments In the United States Windows Live Local already provides real-time traffic. The data comes from Traffic.com and is available in several Metropolitan Areas. The implementation in Windows Live Local is very nice and shows the consequences of traffic incidents and construction sites as colour-coded overlay for both sides of the street. Unfortunately we don't have these nice overlays outside the US and even if he had, we couldn't use them in a Virtual Earth custom application. So I was looking for an alternative to provide traffic data for European countries. Rob Blackwell http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/RollYourOwnTileServer.ashx Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:07:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/RollYourOwnTileServer.ashx#comments Microsoft Virtual Earth brings a whole new dimension to browser-based mapping, but it's possible to go well beyond the supplied API and get the same rich interaction with other kinds of maps, charts and graphical data. This article explains how the tile server protocol works and how to re-point the Virtual Earth control at your own tile server. Rama Krishna Vavilala http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/TracertMap.ashx Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:10:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/TracertMap.ashx#comments The tracert tool displays the various IP Addresses in the route of a network packet as it travels to a destination IP address from a source. In the tool presented in this article, I combine the tracert component, technology to geo-locate based on IP address from HostIP.info and the Virtual Earth API to map the locations of various IP addresses that fall in the route of a network packet when it travels to a user provided destination IP address. Casey Chesnut http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WorldWind.ashx Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:11:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WorldWind.ashx#comments This article will explain how to create a plugin for NASA WorldWind that will incorporate Virtual Earth's data. The benefit for WW is that VE provides a great source for maps with multiple views (road, aerial, hybrid). The benefit for VE is that WW brings the maps into a 3D world with terrain data and many other plugins for overlaying other data sources. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WhereWasDrNeilV3.ashx Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:36:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WhereWasDrNeilV3.ashx#comments Over the last 8 months my Where Was Dr. Neil page has proved to be very popular, I use a link to it as an email footer and my friends and family can always find out where I have been. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/GettingStartedWithV3Pt2.ashx Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:43:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/GettingStartedWithV3Pt2.ashx#comments In the first part of this article you learned how to add and use the version 3 Virtual Earth map control in your own web page. In this article you will discover how to use some of the other controls that make up the Virtual Earth product. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/GettingStartedWithV3Pt1.ashx Sun, 28 May 2006 04:28:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/GettingStartedWithV3Pt1.ashx#comments This article will help you understand how to get started using version 3 of the Virtual Earth Map Control. The map control used in Virtual Earth is a JScript control, this can be used to present a great user experience for online map content. By the end of this article you will have created a web page that displays a map control and allows for some user input. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Directions.ashx Thu, 09 Mar 2006 22:28:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/Directions.ashx#comments In this article we will create a popup context menu to set the start and end points for a journey. We will then discover how to build the code to allow us to retrieve the directions for the journey. Finally we will plot out the route on the map. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarth2PagePt2.ashx Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:59:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarth2PagePt2.ashx#comments In the first part of this article you learned how to add and use the version 2 Virtual Earth map control in your own web page. In this article you will discover how to use some of the other controls that make up the Virtual Earth product. Neil Roodyn http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarth2Page.ashx Wed, 21 Dec 2005 03:01:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarth2Page.ashx#comments This article will help you understand how to get started using version 2 of the Virtual Earth Map Control. The map control used in Virtual Earth is a JScript control and a cascading style sheet. Together these can be used to present a great user experience for online map content. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/AcceleratedCompass.ashx Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/AcceleratedCompass.ashx#comments The commercial version of the Virtual Earth MapControl doesn't feature the nifty compass found on the live MSN Virtual Earth site. Not to worry. We've written a simple implementation of it... VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialAspNet2.ashx Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialAspNet2.ashx#comments In order to get the searches working on the Virtual Earth commercial control you will need to implement two pages on your server that act as proxies to the actual searches on the MSN site. The two searches are for are the ads (what) and the location (where). VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/DashboardWidget.ashx Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/DashboardWidget.ashx#comments Apple's flagship operating system OS X Tiger contains a nifty feature known as the Dashboard. I thought it would be neat to have a Virtual Earth map control accessible through the Dashboard, so I went ahead and implemented my own Dashboard Widget for the task. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialRubyOnRails.ashx Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialRubyOnRails.ashx#comments It's time to once again visit Microsoft's MapSearchControl. This time, we'll be integrating the control into the current darling of the "Web 2.0" movement - Ruby on Rails (aka RoR). VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/ContextMenu.ashx Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/ContextMenu.ashx#comments In this tutorial I'll explain how to add your own context menu (right click popup menu) to your Virtual Earth application. I have used this technique in my MapStats application. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/ObtainingVisitorLocation.ashx Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/ObtainingVisitorLocation.ashx#comments In this tutorial I'll explain how you can obtain the location of the visitor viewing your page. I used this technique in my MapStats application. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialPhp.ashx Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialPhp.ashx#comments Being a web based control you are not limited to particular languages on the server side. In this article, we implement the MapSearchControl with PHP based proxy pages. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/LocalTileCachePhp.ashx Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/LocalTileCachePhp.ashx#comments When developing Virtual Earth applications it is annoying to have to reload the map tiles every time. Want to do something about it? VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialAspNet1.ashx Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/CommercialAspNet1.ashx#comments In order to use Virtual Earth on a commercial website Microsoft has provided a special "commercialized" version of the MapControl. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarthPagePt2.ashx Sun, 07 Aug 2005 21:13:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarthPagePt2.ashx#comments In the first part of this article you learned how to add and use the Virtual Earth map control in your own web page. In this article you will discover how to use some of the other controls that make up the Virtual Earth product. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarthPagePt1.ashx Sun, 07 Aug 2005 21:03:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/FirstVirtualEarthPagePt1.ashx#comments This article will help you understand how to get started using the Virtual Earth Map Control. The map control used in Virtual Earth is a JScript control that presents a great user experience for map content. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WhereWasDrNeil.ashx Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/WhereWasDrNeil.ashx#comments The simple web page Where Was Dr. Neil demonstrates using Virtual Earth to display a set of location data that is associated with dates. The final result can be seen here. VVE http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/SearchServerSide.ashx Sun, 24 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVEarchive/Articles/SearchServerSide.ashx#comments This article introduces a technique to bypass the security issue introduced by accessing a cross domain data source as introduced in the Finding section of Part 2 of Creating Your First Virtual Earth Web Page.