This post is part of a loose series about some recent Silverlight, DeepZoom and DeepEarth work I’ve been doing, see:

Silverlight DeepZoom as an Ad Unit (MPU)
Silverlight data visualisation – SIMD Prototype
Silverlight Visual Car Search – Using DeepZoom for Search

For the others.

I was excited to hear at MIX09 that Microsoft were releasing a Silverlight control for the client side interaction with Virtual Earth. We’ve been doing some interesting work on Silverlight mapping over the last few weeks, see:

http://dwqr.live.stormid.com

For an example (should be the subject of another blog post soon). I think there’s a real opportunity in this area because:

  • Online mapping is a powerful application and the trend is towards ever richer interactivity
  • When you try and implement a lot of richness and then push large amounts of data over the map traditional mapping solutions (basically AJAX / Javascript) grind to a halt.
  • For some reason Flash mapping didn’t really take off to fill this gap – perhaps because of a lack of hard core developers or perhaps because Google are so committed to AJAX, although it’s noticeable that the much heralded SteetView is using Flash for the client side UI.
  • More and more people and things (cars, packages etc) are transmitting their location and these locations are becoming more available via public APIs (see initiatives like Yahoo FireEagle)
  • Silverlight DeepZoom is perfectly suited to bringing map tiles in and out of view in a smooth manner

All this suggests to me that there’s a real opportunity for Siverlight to become the premier technology for the client side of GIS systems. In this example I’m using the Guided Navigation control I built for the previous prototype (Visual Car Search) but instead of using it to filter DeepZoom collections I’m doing so to display and filter the display of adverts (red dots) on a map.

I’m also using the map to display car Dealerships (blue dots). You can get a good idea from this video:

Clicking on a dealership or an advert displays it’s details with a link through to it’s page on the main site.

As you can see at the end you can also set your location, represented by a green dot.

If you’re brave enough you can also check out the live version here, YMMV:

http://rrsl.stormideas.com/Map.html

The possibilities here are pretty compelling:

  • Increase the amount of data and images you display for an advert or a dealership. For example click on a dealership and flick through the cars on offer via a coverflow like interface.
  • Allow users to submit enquires direct from the application rather than requiring them to click through to the main site
  • Once you have entered your location then whenever a dealership or advert is selected show the route to that location and a panel with directions
  • Pick up parameters from the querystring or from InitParams that allow the application to boot up with certain restrictions or a predefined search. For example only showing cars and dealerships from Arnold Clark
  • Some adverts also have an associated video – bring that in and display it too

I should note that we are not actually using the Microsoft control – we’re leveraging the superb DeepEarth project for a number of reasons:

  • We can customise the source
  • It allows us to use other tile sets – we are using Yahoo because their terms and conditions allow us to use their tiles more freely
  • The Microsoft control is not licensed for production use (not a problem here, but a definite problem for DWQR above)

Actually on that point, I’d make mention that we have a really positive relationship with Microsoft but in this case I felt that their licensing didn’t make sense and we couldn’t seem to make any headway with it. For Virtual Earth you’re looking at a cost in the low thousands per year which doesn’t lend itself to use on small but very innovative projects like DWQR or to prototyping projects like the one above.

Considering that this kind of work is really showing off the possibilities of using Silverlight for mapping I would think it would make sense to be showcasing Virtual Earth within that context rather than a rival.

To be fair, the Microsoft Silverlight Virtual Earth control gives you free access until some point later this year but as that is not licensed for production it leaves smaller players like me, who want to put out innovative production Silverlight mapping applications having to use an inferior (sorry Yahoo but it’s accurate) competitor.

I understand that in a large organisation you’re going to get these mismatches but considering that Microsoft are trying to engage with smaller innovators through programmes like BizSpark I was surprised to find that Virtual Earths licensing structure did not have a space to encourage them.