Virtual Earth For Public Sector

The eCityGov Alliance is a regional inter-local agency located in the Puget Sound region of Washington State that provides Internet-based services and information to business and local residents. eCityGov develops cross-boundary, multi-functional Web sites where users can find online access to a suite of services including permitting, commercial property information, recreation resources, shared vendor rosters, and more. To make its recreation and parks Web site especially user-friendly, the Alliance wanted to add an interactive mapping and search feature. eCityGov used Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ to build an application where users can search, locate, and visualize regional parks and recreational resources. With Virtual Earth, eCityGov delivered a rich user experience, reduced the time and cost of implementation, and freed limited technology resources to focus on higher-value tasks.

Read full case study here.

For more than a year I have been blogging on the Virtual Earth platform and sharing the different and clever ways the Public Sector customers are applying it for business intelligence applications. During this time, I have also occasionally shared my thoughts about ways that Virtual Earth (VE3D especially) could be used for law enforcement and intelligence. As the saying goes, you are only limited by your imagination.

Well the writers of the popular television show CSI: New York are not lacking in imagination. Apparently they have included Virtual Earth in some recent episodes but none so much as last night's episode in which our hero's use Virtual Earth to track a killer.

Virtual Earth appears as early as as early as 26:32 but the best footage comes around 36:40 when Virtual Earth is used to locate a firehouse first through satellite imagery on a desktop machine, and then zooming in on the building in Virtual Earth 3D on a big screen (where Virtual Earth belongs!). I love the transition from the 3D model to the actual building because it illustrates the photo-realistic and accurate nature of the Virtual Earth 3D models that I have been preaching about all this time.

You can see the episode here. You can single-click the slider bar under the screen to jump ahead but note that you’ll watch a commercial each time you do.

It is SO worth it!  Thanks to Roger Mall of the Virtual Earth team for arranging and sharing this.

I only recently blogged on this but want to just quickly remind everyone to register for TOMORROW'S webinar:

Microsoft Virtual Earth partner IDV Solutions is offering free 2 day training for customers interested in building mapping applications using the Virtual Earth platform and IDV's Visual Fusion offering. The offer provides personal training for up to 6 attendees at IDV's office and enables attendees who successfully complete the training to build and maintain an application within just a few hours.

The offer, valued at $12,500, will be fully explained in a webinar that IDV will host May 14, 2008, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ((GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)). The webinar will also provide participants with a better understanding of the applicability of Virtual Earth and Visual Fusion to address public sector customer's needs for enhanced clarity and collaboration around critical business data.

The registration for the webinar can found on IDV's web site here: http://www.idvsolutions.com/federaloffer2008.aspx

This aerial view in the Boulder, CO area was brought to my attention. Clearly this property is owned by an extremely intelligent person who recognizes advanced technology when they see it.

I would be even more impressed if it were the Virtual Earth logo!

Frequently we get requests from customers interested in learning more about how to actually code with our Virtual Earth application program interface (API). As simple as we try to make developing solutions with Microsoft Virtual Earth, having someone show you how to do it always makes good sense. One of our peers on the DPE team in Microsoft Public Sector, Marc Schweigert, hosted a webcast a while back during which he walked the audience through developing applications using the Virtual Earth API.  Here is the session description and you can also watch the webcast that has been recorded in Microsoft Events:

The Virtual Earth Platform is an integrated set of services that combines unique  imagery with best-of-breed mapping, location and search functionality. It enables governments to deliver innovative solutions and breakthrough customer experiences. With the Virtual Earth platform, organizations can create an immersive experience that enables consumers to easily discover, search, and visualize business location data and locally relevant information. Take your websites and applications to the next level by integrating the Virtual Earth Platform to deliver the highly visual and locally relevant information consumers care about most.