-=Virtual Jerry

Back in April I blogged on the Neighborhood Stabilization (NSP) site from the Los Angeles County Housing Development that allows residents to search for and identify foreclosure property, and that features Bing Maps (formerly Virtual Earth).

The application has caught the attention of Government Technology and is discussed in an article on the publication’s web site entitled “Los Angeles Fights Neighborhood Blight With Online Map.”

The article provides good background and detail on the solution and includes some good quotes from Doug Swoger, director of homeownership and preservation for the L.A. Housing Department.

A couple of my favorite passages from the article:

The map went live officially this spring, after only four weeks of development. Microsoft helped with the project.

Swoger said the HUD is considering L.A.'s map for its best practices. He said the map is saving L.A. government a lot of time and effort.

Bing!

-=Virtual Jerry

If you read Earth Imaging Journal, you will notice this month a feature story about Microsoft Virtual Earth (the story was submitted to EIJ prior to the Bing Maps rebranding) at work for Department of Transportation agencies in their efforts to provide better web services and travel information to citizens.

The story, which highlights solutions from KDOT as well as VADOT and includes references to many other DOT agencies using our mapping platform, ran in the printed publication as well as here on the Earth Imaging Journal website.

Be sure to check it out!

-=Virtual Jerry

Blogging on Bing Maps (formerly Virtual Earth) imagery releases is a little easier for me as of today.

As readers of this blog know, Microsoft adds tens of terabytes of new content, including high-resolution aerial views, to our mapping platform every month and the list is sometimes rather long. I don’t always receive these updates formatted such that it makes immediate sense to the outside world and have had to massage quite a bit before posting. Lately it’s just been easier to let Chris Pendleton do the work (he IS the Technical Evangelist, after all!) and point my readers to his blog. 

That has all changed today because with the the latest imagery updates that we are announcing today you can now view updates using a new ‘Bing Maps World Tour’ application.

Through Silverlight and Windows Azure technology, you can sit back and relax while the World Tour application provides a guided tour of everything that’s new or you can opt to explore for yourself at your own pace, stopping off at any locations as you please. In essence, the application can be thought of as an interactive slideshow that moves from location to location in our 2D view mode and that you can interrupt to take control of along the way.

What I especially like about the application, in this day of social media and networking, is the ability to share the tour from a specific location with your contacts. Also, the application allows you to not only see new releases but past releases as well.

Matthew Quinlan, who is Group Product Manager for our Enterprise Mapping group and has the best accent of any of us, walks you through the application in the below video.

And, as usual, Chris Pendleton provides a blow-by-blow feature write-up his blog now found on the Bing Maps/Commmunity page.

Huh. I just did it again!

-=Virtual Jerry

Microsoft partner, IDV Solutions, today announced that its SharePoint-based geospatial mashup platform, Visual Fusion, is now integrated with Microsoft’s Azure, allowing rapid creation of enterprise “mashups” that integrate data from virtually any data source into an endless number of applications.

If you are not already familiar with Azure, it is an internet-scale, cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. Azure provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. It can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Azure features an open architecture that gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises. Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers. Azure lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

Readers of this blog should already be well familiar with IDV’s Visual Fusion that combines with Microsoft Bing Maps (formerly Virtual Earth), SharePoint and other Microsoft technologies to create a visual mashup platform that allows organizations to merge data from otherwise incompatible sources—enterprise data stores, Web feeds, spreadsheets and more—into rapidly-built, interactive and collaborative applications that provide a single view of that data.

I’m pretty excited about this announcement from IDV because for three years I have been telling public sector customers how the Virtual Earth (now Bing Maps) web services model minimizes costs, given that the imagery is hosted by Microsoft—updates are done for you, removing that burden from your organization. No need for your users and IT staff to install and maintain data sets or even applications. While this has been true, of course organizations still have needed to invest in an environment to host and serve applications leveraging our mapping platform. And depending on whether their user base consisted of 10 or 10,000, this need changes.

But with today’s announcement, developing applications with Visual Fusion that feature Bing Maps just got much easier but more importantly, less costly and less cumbersome. Developers can now build their solutions locally and then push them up to the cloud to make them live and public. Investments in infrastructure, scalability, and maintenance are of less concern to the organization looking to create collaborative mapping applications. 

Nice!

The full announcement from IDV Solutions can be read here. Meanwhile, they have created and posted a demo that integrates content from Data.gov (Microsoft’s Open Government Data Initiative) and Bing Maps in a user-friendly Silverlight interface for all toreview at http://visualfusion.cloudapp.net.

Who’s looking out for your budgets and taxpayer spend? Microsoft and its partners, I’d say.  ;-)

Bing!

-=Virtual Jerry

If you missed last week’s "Virtual Earth & MapDotNet for Economic Development" webcast featuring yours truly, Mark Alexander of IS Consulting, and Julie Puckett from the Economic Development Council of Tallahassee/Leon County, you can still catch it through the OnDemand recording found here. 

You will definitely want to set aside an hour and watch this informative video that spells out how the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform (now Bing Maps for Enterprise) and ISC’s MapDotNet integrate agency GIS data for better visualization, understanding and distribution of that data. This capability is highlighted in the webcast through a presentation on the EDC Tallhassee/Leon County web site created using Virtual Earth and MapDotNet.

Enjoy and be sure to reference the last slide, "Additional Resources" for contacts to direct questions you may have.

-=Virtual Jerry

Bing! You’ve got maps.

Microsoft today announced the release of its new search engine, Bing. As part of this, the Virtual Earth mapping platform and the Live Search Maps consumer site for location-based search and mapping that Virtual Earth powers will be rebranded as “Bing maps for Enterprise” and “Bing maps,” respectively.

So what does this mean to customers of the Virtual Earth platform? Good news: not all that much,, actually.

If you are using our Virtual Earth mapping APIs, you will see the Bing watermark on content starting on June 1. This is a logo change only. This update will not introduce change in performance or functionality of your application. The contract for your mapping service does not change in terms or duration. There is no action that you need to take. The API calls will not change. They will still refer to Virtual Earth and MapPoint web services to help make sure that your implementation does not break and you do not need to make changes. The API Terms of Use will be updated to replace Virtual Earth with Bing maps for Enterprise, but there is no other change to the terms.

Having said that, this was not a trivial move by Microsoft. The net result for the Virtual Earth teams is that significant resources must be dedicated to updating references to the Virtual Earth brand, where they exist (web sites, case studies, press releases, etc.) with the new Bing maps brand and engaging in activities to raise awareness of this new brand.

On the plus side, the misaligned branding between Virtual Earth and Live Search Maps that in the past has confused some, may now be resolved. 

Chris Pendleton has posted a video interview with Erik Jorgensen, Corporate VP of MSN in his blog entry on the rebranding. Meanwhile, a new Bing blog has been established and can be found here.

What does this mean to readers of the Virtual Earth for Public Sector blog? The blog itself will be renamed and may move in June. Keep an eye out for a post with details. At that time be sure to opt for RSS feeds to the newly located blog.

Will I now be signing off as “BingJerry”?

Hmm … I think not. And you can continue to follow me on Twitter using @MSvirtualjerry.

But should you need to search for online information about me, you can now Bing me, I suppose.

-=Virtual Jerry

Attention all developers! If you have been following this blog for the past year and have read the write-ups on Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D running on the Microsoft Surface computing unit and wished for someone to make it easy to get started developing Virtual Earth applications for the Surface, wish no more!

You can now find on CodePlex (Microsoft hosted web site for open source software) a Windows Presentation Format / Surface control provided by Microsoft partner, Infostrat. The project—InfoStrat.VE—allows WPF and Microsoft Surface developers to take full advantage of Virtual Earth 3D with minimal overhead.

You can find information on InfoStrat.VE here on CodePlex, and a write-up from Virtual Earth Developer Evangelist, Marc Schweigert, here along with his Channel 9 video interview with the guys from Infostrat.  Check out the video to learn the history behind the control, how to get started working with it, and see it in action. The video is roughly 47 minutes but Marc has very thoughtfully provided a timeline so that you can go straight to discussions of particular interest, should you choose.

But I know that developers in the public sector are die-hards and will want to watch every minute!

-=Virtual Jerry

Over the past couple of years, the Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping platform has become a critical component of “Hybrid GIS” solutions—applications that merge traditional geographic information systems with mapping related products and services available on the Internet, such as Virtual Earth. A Hybrid GIS solution combines spatially enabled databases (such as ESRI ArcSDE, Oracle Spatial and Microsoft SQL Server) and a server-based geospatial processing system with a modernized consumer-oriented geospatial visualization component such as Microsoft Virtual Earth.

Microsoft Virtual Earth partner, IS Consulting provides Hybrid GIS solutions that leverage their MapDotNet server technology to integrate agency GIS data with the Virtual Earth mapping platform for better visualization, understanding and distribution of that data. Among the applications they develop, many support urban and economic development. Case in point, the Tallahassee Economic Development Council (TEDC)/Leon County.

On May 26th, the Microsoft Virtual Earth Public Sector team will be joined by IS Consulting and the TEDC for a one hour webcast. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to witness how government agencies can put their stimulus money to work for taxpayers in 2010 and beyond.

Details below.

-=Virtual Jerry

Follow-up to previous blog entry on Photosynth … NASA today announced the release of a Photosynth collection for a more visual learning experience for people interested in their missions and equipment. Full press release below.

-=Virtual Jerry

NASA RELEASES INTERACTIVE 3-D VIEWS OF SPACE STATION, NEW MARS ROVER

WASHINGTON -- NASA released an interactive, 3-D photographic collection of internal and external views of the International Space Station and a model of the next Mars rover on Thursday, May 7.

NASA and Microsoft's Virtual Earth team developed the online experience with hundreds of photographs and Microsoft's photo imaging technology called Photosynth. Using a click-and-drag interface, viewers can zoom in to see details of the space station's modules and solar arrays or zoom out for a more global view of the complex.

"Photosynth brings the public closer to our spaceflight equipment and hardware," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The space station pictures are not simulations or graphic representations but actual images taken recently by astronauts while in orbit. Although you're not flying 220 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, it allows you to navigate and view amazing details of the real station as though you were there."

The software uses photographs from standard digital cameras to construct a 3-D view that can be navigated and explored online.

"This stunning collection of photographs using Microsoft's Photosynth interactive 3-D imaging technology provides people around the world with an exciting new way to explore the space station and learn about NASA's upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "This collaboration with Microsoft offers the public the opportunity to participate in future exploration using this innovative technology."

The Mars rover imagery gives viewers an opportunity to preview the hardware of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, currently being assembled for launch to the Red Planet in 2011.

"We are making this enhanced viewing experience available from the Mars Science Laboratory project because we're eager for the public to share in the excitement that's building for this mission," said Fuk Li, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA's Photosynth collection can be viewed at:
http://www.nasa.gov/photosynth

The NASA images also can be viewed on Microsoft's Virtual Earth Web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth

While roaming through different components of the station, the public also can join in a scavenger hunt. NASA has a list of items that can be found in the Photosynth collection. These items include a station crew patch, a spacesuit and a bell that is traditionally used to announce the arrival of a visiting spacecraft. Clues to help in the hunt will be posted on NASA's Facebook page and @NASA on Twitter. To access these sites, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/collaborate

NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus took the internal images of the space station during the 129 days she lived aboard the complex. She photographed the station's exterior while aboard the space shuttle Discovery, which flew her back to Earth in March. The rover images were taken of a full-scale model in a Mars-simulation testing area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Photosynth has multiple potential benefits for NASA. Engineers can use it to examine hardware, and astronauts can use it for space station familiarization training.

Photosynth software allows the combination of up to thousands of regular digital photos of a scene to present a detailed 3-D model of a subject, giving viewers the sensation of smoothly gliding around the scene from every angle. A collection can be constructed using photos from a single source or multiple sources. The NASA Photosynth collection also includes shuttle Endeavour preparing for its STS-118 mission in August 2008.

For more information about the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory, visit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

Back in August I shared with readers that the Microsoft Photosynth offering, and the team supporting it, had moved into the Microsoft Virtual Earth team.  If you are not familiar with Photosynth, I explained in that entry that it is a technology that allows you to reconstruct a scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs and share that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet. Using techniques from the field of computer vision, Photosynth examines images for similarities to each other and uses that information to estimate the shape of the subject and the vantage point the photos were taken from. With this information, we recreate the space and use it as a canvas to display and navigate through the photos. As part of the Virtual Earth platform, Photosynth provides an even more immersive location experience for users, allowing “synths” to be georeferenced and discovered on a Virtual Earth map to allow for heightened awareness of a location. This is especially useful for the interiors of buildings, since Virtual Earth currently does provide that level of visibility.

As of today Photosynth is commercially available for use by organizations and features some great updates as noted in the full press release below.

-=Virtual Jerry

For Release 12:01 a.m. PDT

May 7, 2009

Microsoft Photosynth Integrates Into Virtual Earth, Marking Commercial Availability of the 3-D Photo Technology

NASA and VisitBrighton put new Photosynth release to work in Virtual Earth and outer space.

REDMOND, Wash. — May 7, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced updates to its Photosynth technology that enable commercial use through integration with Microsoft Virtual Earth. The Photosynth integration into Virtual Earth signifies the first release designed to enable businesses to use Photosynth in commercial applications.

Photosynth software analyzes digital photographs and generates a 3-D model by “stitching” the photos together. These models, or “synths,” can now be viewed using Silverlight technology across multiple platforms. Virtual Earth brings together features, functionality and content that help consumers, businesses, citizens and governments bring location to life. It helps businesses and governments share location-based information, build better connections with consumers or citizens, and helps organizations make better operational decisions. With the integration of Photosynth into Virtual Earth customers will be able to create detailed 3-D views of anything from places to products and from hotels to homes.

“The integration of Microsoft Photosynth into Virtual Earth marks an important step in enabling businesses to use Photosynth in a relevant, customer-friendly way,” said Jeff Kelisky, general manager, Mapping and Local Search at Microsoft. “With the integrated capabilities of Photosynth and recently added Silverlight API, our Virtual Earth partners have great tools for creating, sharing, viewing and embedding synths across multiple platforms, and building engaging experiences.”

The commercial update includes new controls that enable users to decide where and how they share synths by making synths public or unlisted on http://www.photosynth.net. This allows organizations to manage the availability and access to synths, giving greater control over the visual representation of their places and premises. Synths can now include user-defined highlights to showcase key images and greatly improve navigation.

Customers and partners are already seeing the benefits of Photosynth and Virtual Earth with examples now live from organizations and businesses as diverse as NASA and VisitBrighton in the United Kingdom.

“This stunning collection of photographs using Microsoft Photosynth interactive 3-D imaging technology provides people around the world with an exciting new way to explore the International Space Station and learn about NASA’s upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission,” said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “This collaboration with Microsoft offers the public the opportunity to participate in future exploration using this innovative technology.”

Other examples of customers include VisitBrighton, a tourism business in the U.K., facilitated by New Mind Internet Consultancy Ltd., a U.K. partner that has embraced the technology. VisitBrighton recognized the potential of Photosynth both to businesses and visitors to Brighton. Together VisitBrighton and New Mind have been able to offer potential visitors detailed visual information about attractions to encourage people to visit the city. For businesses there is the opportunity to show specific assets to potential visitors, which can put them one step ahead of their competitors.

Potential applications of the new offering may include these:

· Real estate. Showing homebuyers the inside and outside of properties with interactive views

· Tourism and hospitality. Giving an early 3-D and interactive view of hotels, resorts or cities

· Retail. Enabling customers to see the insides of branches and stores, and browse products in great detail

· Media and entertainment. Allowing media companies to create and share visual projects in a controlled environment, and build compelling campaigns and programs with new media

· Public sector. Giving citizens rich detail on public services, buildings, land use and more

· Internal business use. Using unlisted synths for location-based information, such as insurance risk assessment and claim processing

The video that accompanies today’s announcement and customer showcases of Photosynth and Virtual Earth can be viewed at the Virtual Earth Web site.

IDV Solutions has released Visual Fusion 4, boasting that with this latest version, everyone in an organization is empowered to build interactive, business-focused applications in days or weeks, not months or years. Using templates, lists, libraries and application building GUIs means that even a marketing weenie such as myself should now be able to build a “mashup” data visualization application that features Microsoft Virtual Earth maps. I’m pretty excited about that!

Visual Fusion 4 also allows users to take advantage of Microsoft Silverlight for smoother and more dynamic web application experiences, and Microsoft Office Sharepoint for collaboration. For real-time collaboration, the program includes Visual Fusion Contribute, an iPhone application that sends geo-tagged photos and comments to a SharePoint Library.

The full press release can be found here. It doesn’t mention Virtual Earth, but we all know its in there! Meanwhile, IDV has posted a live demo that you can play with to get an idea what can be done with Visual Fusion 4.

Pretty slick. Be sure to check it out … plenty of fun functionality here to test drive. Go crazy!

-=Virtual Jerry

Here’s one I missed on Earth Day.

The EPA MyEnvironment web application, featuring the Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping platform, was released on  Earth Day, April 22, 2009 to replace its “Window to My Environment” application that has provided public access to environmental information since 2001. MyEnvironment is designed to allow the public to obtain a significantly granular level of environmental information pertaining to personally relevant locations such as where they live, where their kids go to school, where they hope to retire to, etc.

Environmental information available on the site includes ecological indicator reports, UV index, particulate matter and ozone daily forecasts, and data relevant to cancer risk, water quality, low birth weight rate, as well as facility and site information as reported to the EPA, such as emission and compliance information. All this data is available around the user’s location of interest and search.

This is another great example of Virtual Earth’s ability to allow GIS data—particularly ArcGIS data—to be rapidly and easily shared and visualized by a vast audience through “cloud computing.”  MyEnvironment was developed inhouse by the EPA using Web 2.0 technology, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and ESRI ArcGIS Server. It searches information from EPA, USGS, HRSA, CDC, and USA.gov in the “cloud” and offers the public an integrated view on the environment.  

What I also love about this new EPA implementation of Virtual Earth is that once you type in the zip code of interest from the EPA home page, the Virtual Earth interactive map page then serves as the front-end user interface, allowing you to visualize environmental data relevant to that location, georeferenced on the map of course, but also through charts and other diagrams below the map. Click and drag the map to display a different location, and all this data—on the map as well as below—refreshes to provide appropriate information for the newly searched region. Very intuitive, easy to use and the beauty of the technologies behind the Virtual Earth platform. Screenshots below illustrate.

(Note the “Learn More” link in the screenshot above. This links off to a “How to Use” page that provides very detailed and easy to understand information on using the site.)

You can refine your search to get information on a specific facility, or filter by pollutant—yielding a map with only those facilities emitting that pollutant plus a federated search of materials pertinent to that pollutant—or by industry, yielding a map with only facilities in that industry (e.g., manufacturing). You can also specify a new location to search which can be easier than dragging the map if that location would require too much dragging of the map to locate.

There’s more. Just below the map in the left corner are what I like to think of as bonus features. I couldn’t get the “Shapefile” feature to work—a user problem, I am sure—so I can’t really speak to it. I guess I was expecting a polygon for the area of interest to be drawn on the map, but not sure. Meanwhile, clicking on the spreadsheet button exports your data for your region of search to a spreadsheet. Very slick. The GeoRSS button allows you to subscribe to a feed so that as information for your area of interest changes, you receive automatic updates. The KML button allows you to export your search data as a KML file so you can share a static, locked down map with others. (I would be more apt to copy the page URL and share that so recipients can also experience the interactive, dynamic maps and related data for my search location.) The Metadata button provides more granular (tabular) information about facilities including descriptions, spatial details, and attributes. Much of this information is even hyperlinked for even further details. A wealth of information here folks.

As if all this isn’t enough, the EPA has enabled the Virtual Earth 3D mode to allow you to visualize locations from all vantage points and perspectives!

This is a terrific, fully functional web application and a great example of what makes Virtual Earth so powerful: it leverages detailed basemaps and flexible, straight forward development tools to provide a dynamic, interactive means of getting a lot of data to any user that has an Internet-enabled PC and a browser. For the enduser, the application is intuitive and easy to use and can be accessed from home, the office, public library or hotel.

‘Nuff said!

-=Virtual Jerry

Since my posts yesterday on the mapping of the swine flu virus, I have learned of additional mapping applications created using Microsoft Virtual Earth to track the virus.

The first is built using a universal web-based map authoring application called Umapper from Umapper, the company, an offshoot of Advanced Flash Components, based in Denver, CO . UMapper’s visual map editor leverages a FLASH application program interface (API) to enable users of any skill level to add points, draw shapes and add interactive overlays to a map.

The below heatmap is created using Umapper and demonstrates concentrations of the virus outbreak across the globe. A KML data feed allows the creator of this map to layer information relevant to the virus. Click on a marker to display all datapoints for that cluster. In the example below, I clicked on the marker for the southwest region of the US, where 49 incidents are indicated, and all datapoints are displayed so that I can click on an individual point of interest to get additional information as seen in my screenshot.

Applications can be found on the Umapper web site that track the virus impact by region. Below is a screenshot of the map for North and South America, and maps can be found for Europe and Oceania.

Meanwhile, here is a reminder as to how powerful the Virtual Earth powered Live Search Maps free consumer site can be when using the Collections feature. The author has created a map Collection of Swine Flu H1N1 outbreaks and migration paths reported from news and government agencies. The map lists reported dates and travel paths of infected persons. I am unable to confirm but I suspect that the author probably took advantage of the Live Search Maps ability to import KML data feeds to plot this information. Otherwise, this required a lot of manual entry! (Easily done in Live Search Maps Collection, but just not as time efficient.)

Remember that you can subscribe to RSS feeds for Live Search Maps Collections to receive automatic updates when a Collection is updated. Just click on the RSS Subscribe button.

I will definitely be subscribing to this Collection while I continue to frequently wash my hands and avoid pigs.

-=Virtual Jerry

Microsoft Virtual Earth user, Veratect Corporation, tracks global unrest, providing early detection warning to clients and is being credited for being the first to sound the alarm on the swine flu epidemic.

Noticing patterns using their system that features Virtual Earth maps, the company first detected traces of the virus on March 30th, reporting their findings to the CDC and WHO on April 6, issued a second alert on April 16, and finally calling the CDC on April 20 when the disease appeared to be spreading significantly.

The full story and video can be found here.

-=Virtual Jerry

As the number of reported outbreaks of the swine flu and the resulting death toll mounts, organizations are turning to mapping to better visualize and track the impact of the virus.  When datapoints are plotted on a map, the big picture view provided makes trends and patterns more clear.

In the case of the BBC, they are using Microsoft Virtual Earth in an application that can be found on their website. The interactive map plots the location of related news around the globe with content in the form of text, video and audio, and from official sources as well as from readers providing eyewitness accounts.

Keep an eye on the site and be safe, please.

-=Virtual Jerry

More news from Los Angeles about further adoption of Microsoft Virtual Earth! The LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has leveraged the Virtual Earth mapping platform for its Power Reliability Program. The program provides a blueprint for ensuring continued reliable energy service for future generations of Los Angeles residents. LADWP implemented the Power Reliability Program through a two-pronged approach—rebuilding infrastructure and proactive maintenance—and will invest more than $1 billion in the program over the next 5 to 15 years. The program is funded through a power reliability surcharge. Virtual Earth is being used to track events such as a circuit going into a temporary state (bad), or a pole being replaced (good). This will allow the department to assess how well it is doing in meeting objectives.  Employing Virtual Earth maps and its web service model will allow users outside the department to assess themselves what events are taking place in their neighborhoods.

LADPD selected Virtual Earth because they found the application program interface (API) intuitive, making development fast and easy. For you techies, the rest of the stack looks like this:

• JQuery
• ASP.Net (web forms/VB.Net)
• XML Data (flat files)

The source data, both tabular and spatial, resides in Oracle 10g databases. (Remember that Virtual Earth integrates nicely with other technologies!)  For firewall reasons, the data (with the exception of the district boundaries) is extracted to XML flat files on a nightly basis and uploaded to the web server onto the LADWP DMZ.  Specifically, the point locations on the maps are stored in GeoRSS format. Since there are often several data points at one address, LADPD groups the data points by location (address, substation, lat/long, etc) prior to exporting from Oracle to GeoRSS to ensure that the icons don’t overlap and to cut down (in some cases significantly) on client-side processing time.  Since the export only runs once a day, LADPD finds this much more efficient than either server or client side clustering done at the application level.

Further information from Tom Wayson of the LADWP:

“For the district boundaries, we recognized that the boundaries themselves and some of their attribute data (district number, council member, etc) were static, while other attribute data (the performance indicator tracked by the map, i.e. the number of temporary circuits) changes daily.  So we did a one time upload of the district boundary GeoRSS file to Live Maps as a VE collection and set up all the rendering (shading, etc) there.  The map then accesses this collection directly each time it is loaded (thought it could just as easily access a local KML file, we just haven’t had time to test the relative performance). The dynamic attribute values for each district are then “joined” to the static data using jQuery at runtime.  So for the 7 total maps, there’s just one copy of the boundary data, and 7 small files that contain just the attributes.  That’s possibly the most interesting technical aspect of this implementation.”

This site is an adaptation of a portion of an intranet only project that a team of 5 developers worked on for about 4 months (part time) last summer.  I was the only developer working on the map interface, though one other developer worked on the initial summary page with the charts, and all the other developers were involved in spatially grouping the point data and exporting from their respective databases.  There were a few challenges in adapting the ideas behind the original site to work on a publicly accessible Internet site, and I took a few days to write proof of concept code to convince myself that those hurdles could be overcome.  Once I started in earnest, it took me about 3 weeks (part time) to complete the map page, so about a month total.“

You can get activity updates on the Program web site here. There you will see charts showing activity for poles replaces and reinforced, installed distribution transformers, underground cable lengths, and abnormal and temporary circuit backlog (see below screenshot example).

From these charts you can pull up maps that track completed and planned activities. From the map, you can select data by district. In this instance, I chose District 2 because I see there are 79 datapoints and that’s going to make for a better graphic! The pushpins represent the location of distribution stations and mousing over those pushpins provides you with a snapshot of information about the point of interest, in this case transformers replaced. When looking at mapped data from other charts, this snapshot in some cases provides links to more detailed information.

Another great example of Virtual Earth bringing at a glance understanding of data by providing better visualization. Kudos to the LADWP for their steadfast adoption of providing better tools to internal users and the public through online mapping.

-=Virtual Jerry

Just in time for Earth Day, Los Angeles County officials this week unveiled a solar mapping program that allows homeowners and businesses to go online to determine if their properties are good candidates for solar power. The  Los Angeles County Solar Map application leverages the power of Microsoft Virtual Earth to provide the data visualization and serves as the front end user interface for the application.

The program uses roof size, pitch and shading from nearby trees, buildings and mountains to provide a building’s solar potential and the potential value of installing solar panels. To better understand this, the site provides “About your estimate” information, but I received the following details from Mark Greninger, Geographic Information Officer for the County:

“Basically we used our high resolution elevation model taken using LIDAR during our 2006 Imagery Capture (see http://planning.lacounty.gov/lariac for details), and ran ESRI’s Solar Radiation Model for the entire county (this took 30 days on an 8-processor server).  This calculation includes the effects of roof pitch, chimneys, trees, etc to provide the areas of a roof that are good for solar.  The roof area itself was pulled from a calculation using the Infrared imagery. From that point I used GIS analysis to attach the property information to all of the results, and then summarized the results for each property.  Moving forward we are looking to figure out how to show the 350 million individual values that go into the results.”

The County, as a major electricity user, with facilities spread across a wide geography, seems a natural test-bed for the implementation of solar energy systems. But the decision to install a solar energy system is generally difficult because it involves complex factors such as: the solar electricity potential (based on geography and building characteristics), installation costs, availability of rebates, estimated energy savings, identifying reputable installation contractors, performing return on investment (ROI) calculations, and who to contact to get started.

But LA County officials consider it a fiscally responsible move in an effort to reduce electricity costs by installing solar systems and believed a Solar Map would provide a simple and elegant solution, utilizing existing aerial imagery, solar potential software and a solar engineering model to provide potential solar installation information for any building.

As you would expect with a Virtual Earth application, the map features pushpins to represent the different data layers, in this case Government (green), Residential (yellow), Commercial (pink), Schools/libraries (cyan), Non-profits (blue), and Zip Code Summaries (red). Mousing over the pushpin provides information for that particular installation or a summary of all installations for an entire zip code (installations are combined to create a total figure).  The red dot represents the center point of the zip code only.

I am thrilled to see that the County implemented Virtual Earth’s 3D environment for its users to navigate its buildings and terrain in the intuitive manner that only Virtual Earth 3D provides. Internal Services Director Tom Tindall, suggests through the County’s press release that this additional level of detail will help the County itself to “evaluate and implement cost-effective installations, including solar power and solar water heaters.”

I am including the County’s full press release below as well as some screenshots I have captured to wet your appetites, but take a moment in observance of Earth day and go visit their site.

And be sure to check out my buddy Chris “Elvis” Pendleton’s Virtual Earth Evangelist’s blog for his keen perspective on this application and for other interesting “Virtual Earth on Earth Day” news.

-=Virtual Jerry

April 20, 2009

COUNTY DEBUTS NEW SOLAR MAPPING PROGRAM

Homeowners and businesses will be able to go online to determine if their properties are suitable for solar power

Los Angeles County officials today unveiled a solar mapping program that will allow homeowners and businesses to go online to determine if their properties are good candidates for solar power.

The program uses roof size, pitch and shading from nearby trees, buildings and mountains to provide a building’s solar potential and the potential value of installing solar panels.

By typing in an address, a person will learn the property’s roof size, area suitable for solar panels, electricity produced, electricity savings, carbon reduction, nearby solar installations and case studies, available rebates from utility companies, and information about installers.

The level of detail provided means that residents and solar installers do not need to go up on every roof to see if it can support solar, saving time and money. Solar installers will be able to give more detailed estimates based on specific situations, but the solar portal provides generally accurate guidelines of what can be expected. The ultimate goal is to make the website a one-stop solar shop for residents and businesses.

Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Zev Yaroslavsky praised the project, saying it will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs.

The new website -- available at solarmap.lacounty.gov – went live today and will be featured Wednesday – Earth Day – at the National Conversation on Climate Action all-day conference in Los Angeles, which is part of a national effort to fight global warming.

It is the largest solar map in terms of geographic area in the world, covering 3,000 square miles, said Acting Chief Information Officer Richard Sanchez, whose department developed the site in conjunction with the Internal Services Department.

The solar website, developed at a cost of $93,500, was generated from high-resolution imagery and elevation information acquired in 2006 which included roof-top and ground elevation every five feet. It calculates and ranks incoming solar radiation every 25 square feet, using roof pitch, orientation, and shading from surrounding structures and trees to provide the best estimate possible.

The project will be of great benefit to the County itself, said Internal Services Director Tom Tindall, as it includes high resolution - three-dimensional modeling of 800 County buildings. These detailed analyses will be used to evaluate and implement cost-effective installations, including solar power and solar water heaters.

The County is a major electricity user, with facilities spread over a wide geography, operating in more than 3,000 buildings that comprise more than 60 million square feet, so the mapping project will save countless hours developing initial estimates and prioritizing projects manually, said Tindall.

It will do the same for other building managers throughout the County, said Yaroslavsky, who authored the 2008 motion to develop “green building” ordinances for the County’s unincorporated areas to lower utility rates and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Buildings account for 65 percent of electricity consumption and 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Energy consumption can be reduced by as much as 20 percent by the use of energy-efficient measures in existing buildings.

The County is developing a program that would assist homeowners and businesses in financing solar panels. On April 14 the Board of Supervisors approved Supervisor Ridley-Thomas’ motion to create by July a program that would allow property owners to finance energy-efficiency upgrades by borrowing money from the County and paying it back through their property tax bills.

Every once in a while a Virtual Earth commercial application comes along that I feel compelled to share with my public sector readers because it either has relevance to their profession or to their personal lives. Here is one that is both.

AT&T announced this week the availability of FamilyMap, a child locator solution. The tool allows you to locate a family member's phone via a web browser on a PC or mobile device. FamilyMap is powered by Wavemarket, a provider of location-based solutions including cell phone-based child tracking through its Family Finder solution. Wavemarket is using Microsoft Virtual Earth as a component in its platform and supports additional solutions similar to FamilyMap from other wireless carriers that include Alltel and Sprint Nextel. Sprint features a nice little explanatory video for its Family Locator on its web site.

The AT&T FamilyMap service enables users to see details such as location on a map and surrounding landmarks like schools and parks. Users can also toggle between satellite and interactive street maps. Families can customize their mapping experience by assigning a name and photo to each device within their account, and can also label places they visit frequently, like “Home” or “Soccer Field.”

The personal relevance is obvious … I am sure many readers of the Virtual Earth for Public Sector blog have children. Here’s a great way to keep them safe and monitor errant teenagers.

On a public sector professional note, this tracking application demonstrates how Virtual Earth mobile support could be leveraged by agencies where there exists the need to track field personnel. Be it for armed forces, postal carriers, or emergency first responders, this Wavemarket technology could be leveraged to go one step further than the Virtual Earth GPS tracking solutions I have seen that are typically tied to vehicles. Fleet tracking is effective in knowing the whereabouts of a mobile asset but the moment a driver leaves a vehicle, all you know is the location of the vehicle. The ability to track personnel through Wavemarket’s solution and wireless devices, rather than GPS-enabled vehicles, could provide better insight into the activities and safety of employees during business hours. It allows you to receive automatic notification when that person has left a pre-set location and then call or text message them from a mobile phone or text message them via the web.

A great way to keep them safe and monitor errant employees!

-=Virtual Jerry

Microsoft Virtual Earth partner, Scott Caulk of IDV Solutions, will be presenting a 60-minute webcast next Wednesday, April 22, 2009 2:00 PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) to demonstrate how to rapidly build enterprise applications using their Visual Fusion platform and leveraging Microsoft Sharepoint for collaboration and Virtual Earth for data visualization. The full abstract is below and you can register here.

See you there!

-=Virtual Jerry

Abstract:

In this webcast learn how to rapidly build mashups of enterprise data and cloud content inside SharePoint with Visual Fusion.  Visual Fusion is an enterprise mashup platform for creating interactive, map-based applications utilizing the power of SharePoint. Our software empowers everyone in an organization to create interactive, geospatial mashups from unlimited sources of data.  It unites with SharePoint to form a platform for building Enterprise 2.0 apps that drive agility, collaboration, and insight.

The Visual Fusion platform reduces the time and risk associated with developing compelling, mission critical applications that pull together data from disparate sources into common operational pictures for greater situational awareness.  Virtual Earth becomes the canvas to display the information, providing a commanding overview and at-a-glance understanding.  The resultant app is a rich internet application with an intuitive and inviting interface (Flash or Silverlight) suitable for everyone in the organization.  App users can interact with the dynamic content, contribute to it via easily accessible tools, and collaborate around it with SharePoint blogs, wikis, discussion lists, etc.  Development for these apps is measured in hours, not weeks or months, and a sample app will be built in just a few minutes during the webcast.

Organizations benefit greatly from the agility and flexibility that the Visual Fusion platform affords.  Simple apps can be built with GUIs, but developers are also empowered to build highly customized applications via an SDK (C# API), REST & JS APIs, and configuration files.  Once a completed app is in the hands of the users, the benefits continue as workflows are completed more quickly, revenue opportunities materialize, and greater insight is developed around the issue at hand.  Join us to learn about this decision support technology and how it can bring tremendous value to your organization.

Speaker Bio:

Scott Caulk is the Product Manager for IDV Solutions and in this role is the primary messenger to and for the market as it relates to the Visual Fusion suite of products.  Scott has over 9 years of IT experience as a developer, project manager, and product manager.  In addition to graduating with honors and earning an MBA from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Scott also holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Azusa Pacific University.  He lives in Michigan with his wife and son.