Bing Maps

BGI Solutions with its longstanding experience and pioneering position with Microsoft Bing Maps offers licensing of Bing Maps as well as many tried and tested products, functions, services and data.

Since the introduction of Microsoft Virtual Earth in 2005, BGI has successfully supported numerous international customers with integration services, software and other services around Bing Maps. Since 2007, BGI has been an official Microsoft partner for technical support for mapping products such as MapPoint, MapPoint WebService and Bing Maps (formerly Virtual Earth, Live Maps).

On behalf of the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, USA, we help our German as well as international customers implement successful Bing Maps solutions – be it customizing, additional functions, support or various additional data.

1. Benefits

Key benefits of Bing Maps

Bird’s Eyes – Tilted aerial photographs from every geographic direction

The application “Bird’s Eyes” enables a high resolution view and tilted aerial photographic perspective for every geographic direction. In Germany these tilted aerial photographs are available for about 200 cities, where areas with 85% of the German population are displayed.

Rooftop Geocoding

Bing Maps offers an accurate rooftop geocoding using official coordinates for the predominant part of Germany.

Streetside for 50 German cities

Since 2009 Streetside is already available in 56 American cities as well as selected areas in Canada. Following Great Britain, the collection of street pictures in Germany is currently carried out. In 2011 data of 50 German cities is supposed to be collected and published.

Streetside is already available on the Bing Maps-Betaversion website.

Like all Microsoft services Bing Maps Streetside was developed according to effective privacy policies and regulations in Germany.

Interactive Documentation

Microsoft Bing Maps for Enterprise is known for its comprehensive and extensive kind of interface documentation. Moreover, Microsoft Bing Maps for Enterprise provides interactive documentation for two APIs, Ajax and Silverlight.

Photosynth Technology

Microsoft Photosynth facilitates technology for Bing Maps for Enterprise customers in order to connect pictures of popular sights from different sources in a 3D-Environment, through which the user can move. The combination of Photsynth and Bing Maps offers advanced opportunities: Views of cities can be collected, which are situated aside of streets and roads; and it is possible to integrate pictures of the building’s interior.

A great example for the adoption of Photosynth and the application of Silverlight in Bing Maps is a virtual flat viewing.

For your own conviction click here and view a very demonstrative tutorial of the development and integration of your Photosynths. Even a Plug-In for Photoshop is available.

2. News

New Version 1.2 available in July

On 6th of July 2011 a new version of BingMaps will be released. Version 1.2 will include a “new” map style, with which single views of streetmaps will be even clearer, more distinct and better to distinguish. For example, contrasts are enhanced and colour saturation is intensified to offer a better distinction between different types of streets. Streets and buildings will be coloured in different greyscales to have a clearer differention between the two of them. These and all other changes are based on an intense feedback of customers, users and developers and are related to their demands. More information about the changes you can find here.

Also from 6th of July on it won´t be possible any longer to choose the old style of version 1.1 for BingMaps applications as the new style of version 1.2 will be automatically be used as standard.



Before: Version 1.1 After:Version 1.2

3. Solutions

Bing Maps for Enterprise - Integration into Internet and Intranet

BGI as an integrator, support, adviser.

Add-ons for Bing:

Bing Maps - functions, areas of application, uses

Microsoft Bing Maps is an internet service which can be used to integrate maps and location specific services into websites and applications. Bing Maps functions include:

Maps, aerial and satellite images
Bird's Eye Images (pictures of building from a bird’s eye perspective)
Navigation (Zooming, moving)
Address and city search
Routing
Simple data integration, for example via GeoRSS, SQL, etc.
Draw your own maps with lines and polygons
Integrate your own data (maps, pins, lines, polygons, symbols, etc.)
3D imaging and 3D buildings
Simple API for your own solutions

4. Examples

Live example of Bing Maps

Just click on the map and try it - live!

RSS Feeds on a map

Click here to be redirected to BGI RSSMapper Application

Bing Maps - maps in different zoom levels


Northern Germany	Berlin/Brandenburg	Berlin

Berlin City	Berlin Mitte	Berlin Charlottenstraße

Bing Maps - different requirements, different maps

Bing Maps offers three different presentation types. The selection of presentation types lets you achieve different insights.

Map
- Route planning
Aerial image
- Get a general idea of an area.
Bird's Eye

Get an idea of the area from the bird´s eye perspective to gain a spatial impression.


Bing Maps - Map	Bing Maps - Aerial Image	Bing Maps - Bird's Eye

Bird´s Eye photographs - a chance encounter

Combined solutions with Bing Maps

Bing Maps lets you combine a highly diverse range of geodata with map and image elements.


Bing Maps with grid map	Bing Maps with ground value maps	Bing Maps with public transport from motorist association data

Potential applications of Bing maps

Web based applications
Store locator
Companies

Presentation of stores on a website with route description.

Get directions

Find the closest store

shops

Real estate portals: present the location of properties in their surroundings
Neighbourhood

Infrastructure

Social networking portals
who is where?

City marketing
Find points of interest

Public service - where do I find what?

Vacation planning in holiday portals
Hotel location

Restaurants

Directions

Business development, chambers of industry and commerce
Where does increased proximity give you edge?

Yellow pages and information portals
Neighbourhood search with map display

publishing houses
Online portals

mobile services

Applications for business management
Materials logistics
Acquisition
Disposition
Purchasing
Warehous management
Human resources management
Where do employees live?
Field service planning
Distributive trade
Distribution
Marketing
Production planning
Search for suppliers spatially
Administer suppliers spatially
Customer Relationship Management
Present and plan sales areas
Client specific sales
Marketing and service
Logistics and supply chain management
ERP

Management applications
Management information systems
Geographic representation of key business figures
Simulation systems
Fleet simulation
Data mining
Client group definition
Call center
Client specific marketing
Exception and crisis management
Incident management
Project planning and teamwork with map support
E.g. in SharePoint, Microsoft Project

Process support applications
Work flow
Goods tracking
Goods monitoring
Content management
Linking documents with maps
Spacial search for information
Office
Table calculations
Travel expenses report by routing
Presentation
Easy to understand visualisation of sales areas
Messaging
Simple and cost-effective communication across several offices
Disposition
Vehicles tracking
Group ware and team software
E.g. SharePoint - exchange of information

Bing Maps system requirements

Communication: via Javascript / AJAX with Bing maps servers
Only requires web browser with Javascript
Internet Explorer > 5.5 (Windows)
Firefox 0.9 and higher (Windows, MacOS)
SDK

The use of Bing Maps

Bird's eye (real 45° side-on views of buildings from bird’s eye perspective)
Aerial and satellite imagery (high resolution and most up to date map material)
Dynamic maps (zoom and move NAVTEQ street maps)
Integrate your own maps and data (vector and grid)
Intuitive and dynamic user interface (by use of AJAX technology)
Localization (maps in different languages)
Geocoding (search for addresses and locations)
Driving directions and routing (without borders)
Radius search (search for objects and POIs in the area)
Points of interest (NAVTEQ POI can be integrated)
Integration into your own application (desktop, intranet, internet, etc.)
Service level agreement (response time and availability are guaranteed)
No developer license required
Cross-platform (ASP.NET, JSP, PHP etc.)
Business model (existing business model ensures security of integration)