Microsoft to Compete With Google Earth? [update]
All Points Blog notes that Microsoft has acquired a Toronto-based company specialized in 3D visualisation named GeoTango. Their product GlobeView seems to be pretty similar to Google Earth, plus it is based on OGC Standards. The description of GlobeView has been removed from the GeoTango website, but you might still find it cached by your favorite web search engine. So there is evidence that we will see some product similar to Google Earth launched by Microsoft in the (near?) future. I am really curious what it is going to look like, and especially whether they will make handling of OGC services easy enough for non-professionals. To my mind, this is the main problem of NASA World Wind - and the lack of publicity, of course.
Update: James Fee has a post quoting a GeoTango employee:
The GlobeView tech will require some work to get it to the level of polish found in Google Earth, but with the resources Microsoft has, it should be a good kick in the pants for Google Earth when it is finally re-released.
So we finally have a good hint that there will be something like Mircosoft GlobeView (or what ever it may be called). And Microsoft seems to try to keep it secret, because the statement has been removed from the original source quoted by James Fee.
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4. January 2006 um 01:39
Did you tried wmsInterface to connect World Wind with OGC WMS servers?
4. January 2006 um 09:53
I must admit that I don’t quite remember how I tried to do it. It’s been some weeks. So I just tried it again, and it works using the One World plugin. But I still don’t know how to add my own, custom WMS.
However, I still do think that this is all a bit too complicated for non-professionals. And maybe that’s fine, because World Wind is a complex product, which is not really targeted at “non-GIS-people”. But if Microsoft wants to compete with Google Earth, they have to make their product really easy to use.
4. January 2006 um 14:43
Adding your own servers with wmsInterface is simple,
have a look at the
instructions
And I agree, the WMS standard is not end user compatible.
It lacks at least a defined view (Lat, Lon, Alt) where in ANY case choosen layer is useable and server does not return white tiles.
5. January 2006 um 00:24
I ran into similar situation with an svg interface.
Most public WMS getCapabilities don’t seem to use the and tags. Some don’t include either Layer or Layer . Or if it is included it is just a generic overall bounding box rather than layer specific. The combination of BoundingBox with Min Max scale would allow a determination of visibility and avoid the dreaded white tile when using a simple
5. January 2006 um 00:28
As far as Microsoft/GeoTango, the interface could possibly move to .NET XAML, which unlike SVG is 3D. There are a lot of interesting possibilities as a WFS as well as WMS when client XAML is part of the equation. In a declarative XML graphic, aggregators or end users can add their own event listeners to customize local interaction relatively easily. It should allow us amateurs more leeway than even the Google API. WFS makes chaining a lot easier too. The big problem though, is vectors give away a lot of intelectual property.
5. January 2006 um 11:18
Noiv, I’ve been playing around with wmsInterface, and it worked at least for some WMS. Might be a problem of the servers with the ones I could not add. But still, that’s not what I would consider really user-friendly. And having a standard view defined by each WMS working on every layer is certainly a good idea.
Rkgeorge, I have not used WMS with SVG yet, but I know that there are hardly any servers offering this format.
I don’t know much of XAML, so I just have to believe what you say about this
However, you are right - vectors give away a lot (if not all) of the original information. So providers of services offering vector formats really have to be careful not do breach other ones copyrights.
6. January 2006 um 00:37
This is an interesting move of Microsoft. Let’s hope that they stick to the OGC standards and don’t incorporate their own, proprietary, ideas. (like they did with CSS).
6. January 2006 um 09:48
… and like they did with HTML and JavaScript. And there are certainly some other examples.