Windows Live Local

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Screenshot of MSN Virtual Earth in Internet Explorer 6

Windows Live Local in Windows Internet Explorer 7

Screenshot of Virtual Earth 3D within Windows Live Local

Windows Live Local is a free web map server provided as a part of Microsoft's Windows Live online applications services suite. At http://local.live.com (http://maps.live.com or http://virtualearth.com), it offers street maps, satellite imagery, driving directions, and traffic information.

1 Features
2 Coverage
3 Bird's Eye View
4 History
5 Compatibility
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Features

The new features in Window Live Local's initial release included a Pictometry "Birds Eye" view of several major US and UK cities and integrated route calculation. The new features in its May 2006 release include a revised UI, user points of interest that can be stored and shared, and tracking of traffic in several major cities. The new features in its November 2006 release include navigation of the map in 3D including 3D models for buildings for several major cities in the United States.

[edit] Coverage

Windows Live Local contains highly detailed street-level data for all cities, towns, and villages in the United States, Canada (with the exception of the rural northeastern provinces), Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. There is also basic aerial photography coverage for all those areas. For much of the world, Live Local contains rudimentary highway-level data and the locations of most settlements, but no street-level data. For some countries, like Taiwan, South Africa, and South Korea, Live Local has data on highways and some arterial roads, but lacks local streets or alleys.

There is also detailed map data available for several global cities in developing countries like Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Mexico City. However, for such cities, the detail of the map decreases significantly as one moves outward from the city center.

The 3D version contains Photo-Textured (from actual photos taken from airplanes) 3D models for buildings in San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Detroit, Phoenix, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas and Fort Worth.

[edit] Bird's Eye View

Bird's Eye View mode consists of high resolution aerial imagery taken from an angle rather than straight down from four directions. The data is usually more recent, less scratchy, and provides a view of the sides (instead of tops) of houses, buildings, cars, and numerous other things. The imagery is even so high quality that Christmas decorations could be seen in a December 2003 Bird's Eye photo. Also, signs on or near buildings can sometimes be read depending on resolution and size (i.e. McDonald's sign, Mobil Gas sign). As of November 2006, Bird's Eye View is limited to a few metropolitan areas.

[edit] History

Windows Live Local is based on existing Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft MapPoint and TerraServer. Upon its release in December 2005, Live Local assumed the client side functionality of the former MSN Virtual Earth platform. On November 6, 2006, Microsoft added the ability to view the maps in 3D using a .NET managed control and managed interfaces to Direct3D.

v1 (Beagle) - July 2005
v2 (Calypso) - December 2005 - Birds Eye imagery released
v2.5 - February 2006
v3 (Discovery) - May 2006 - Real time traffic, collections, new API.
v4 (Endeavour) - September 2006 - People search, drawing on maps, new imagery
v5 (Spaceland) - November 2006 - 3D viewer, building models in 15 cities

[edit] Compatibility

Windows Live Local has been tested on Internet Explorer 5, 6 & 7, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.x & 2.0 for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh, and unofficially tested on Netscape and Konqueror. The website does not support Opera or Safari. Safari users are directed away from viewing the map. 3D viewing is supported on Internet Explorer 6 and 7 only.