Microsoft have launched a new UK versions of virtual earth with new imagery sourced from getmapping. The imagery seems to leapfrog the imagery in google earth/maps seeming to be more recent at least in the area I looked at and appears to be around the same resolution 15-20cm.
Remember Microsoft have adopted a more conventional business model with virtual earth, and are selling it as a service to commercial users, in contrast to googles surposed “non-commercial” only approach
Written and submitted from the Holiday Inn Express Exeter, using the hotels wifi network.
5 replies on “Virtual Earth UK, now with new imagery!”
I notice that they also have bird’s eye view for at least one area. Try Swindon… I would link to it but the site is running really slowly at the moment.
Interestingly, the locations that I have compared with Google Earth appear to be a few years behind GE. My area of the country must be in a time warp!
Ed,
Pretty good stuff. Had a quick look at a few areas. The area to the west of OS has good vertical and birds eye imagery (better than GE). Trieed some London locations but only found the street data. Looks like pretty good resolution as well. I’ve tried it at home and in the office and the performance has been good.
I assume that the birds eye data is the lower resolution Pictometry that MS make avaialable in the states ? Interesting to see how this drives Google’s next move. They are both going to need to offer higher quaility data unless they want to call it a draw !!!
Cheers
Steve
Cool imagery, but well out of date (in Surrey at least), painfuly slow, and with a difficult and unforgiving interface. It could be good in the future – but as it stands, it is definatly a Beta. With web based systems, ease of use will always drive customer perception of the product, so I hope they get it right soon, as Google need competition.
On that – what do you think of Dell bundling Google products on their PCs?
Its a shame the road data does not mathc or is not uptodate in the places i’ve looked at!