For the "long-term readers", I posted an entry on Creating a Hyperlink to Google Maps in GeoMedia a few months ago. Well, Chris Matus sent me an example of linking to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth environment. I’ve modified it slightly to work against the US Sample dataset. This demonstration is using the "USSampleData.gws" geoworkspace. I’ve simply created a functional attribute on the HighwayInterchange feature class (although not terribly useful, it still demonstrates the functionality).
‘http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=’+
ROUND(Y(CENTERPOINT(Input.Geometry), TrueMeas, Degree), 6)+’~’+ROUND(X(CENTERPOINT(Input.Geometry), TrueMeas, Degree), 6)+’&style=h&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&sp=Point.’+Y(CENTERPOINT(Input.Geometry), TrueMeas, Degree)+’_’+X(CENTERPOINT(Input.Geometry), TrueMeas, Degree)+’_’+Input.ID+”
In Chris’ case, he was using an area feature named "building". That’s why you’re seeing the CENTERPOINT function being used. Additionally Chris is creating a bounding box (also known as a minimum bounding rectangle). That’s why you’re seeing two lat/long pairs. Past those points, he’s using the same logic I used in my Google Maps posting to calculate the latitude and longitude.
So, the ‘http://maps.live.com/default.aspx? is simply calling Microsoft Live. Then he has some parameters he’s calling:
- V=2
- Style=h
- Lvl=17
- Tilt=-90
- Dir=0
- Alt=-10000
- Sp=Point
Instead of describing the parameters here, I’ll point you to the Microsoft Live help (which by the way, is fantastic). In the help you can search for the different parameters and you should be able to find what they mean and other options quite simply. For instance, Style is actually the map style. Valid arguments here are:
r=Road
a=Aerial
h=Hybrid
o=Birdseye
Just by changing the style I can go from a:
Road Style
to a Hybrid Style (aerial and lines)
As a whole, I really like the Microsoft Live Search Maps application. It’s extremely functional and really offers a lot of nice bells and whistles. In fact, you can even get into 3D rendering of your map. As a whole, it’s a nice and welcome alternative to Google Maps and I’d highly recommend you play with it.
One last note – Chris made a great point when he mentioned that he’s using the functional attribute for a GeoMedia WebMap Publisher application. Since he’s doing that, he actually URL encoding his functional attribute to ensure it works correctly on a web site. So, in the example he gave me, he substituted all "&" with "%26". I changed it back for this demonstration. However if looking to feed this though a web application like GeoMedia WebMap as opposed to GeoMedia/Pro, it would be best to URL encode the function.