Available for download

Jun 6, 2008 11:03 GMT  ·  By

May 2008 marks yet another leap forward in the evolution of Microsoft's Virtual Earth. According to Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth Technical Evangelist, Microsoft introduced a massive 69.2 TB (Terabytes) update to its integrated mapping, imaging, search, and data visualization platform, as it is defined by the Redmond company. The May 2008 Virtual Earth update is focused on delivering new imagery to the platform. Pendleton revealed that new 3D models along with fresh Ortho and Oblique (Bird's Eye) imagery account for the 69.2 TB of the update.

This is not to say that even Pendleton wasn't impressed by the Terabytes of new imagery. "Are you kidding me?" he asked. "69.2 Terabytes?? I was once asked at a show how Microsoft handles so much data when transferring it over the Internet to the data centers." Pendleton went on to enumerate the new 3D models (which have been produced with the second version of the Virtual Earth processing software). "In addition to Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix we've added Vienna, Seattle and Miami."

A complete list with the new cities around the world featuring new imagery, be it Ortho or Bird's Eye is available here. At the same time, Microsoft made available for download a new version of Virtual Earth 3D. Weighing at 15.6 MB, the Virtual Earth 3D integrates only with Windows Vista, Widows Server 2003 and Windows XP, running Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and Firefox 2.0. The June 5, 2008 release of Virtual Earth 3D is still in Beta.

"Virtual Earth 3D brings you another step closer to knowing 'what it is like out there'. You can search, browse, and organize local information viewed in three dimensions, just the way it exists in the real world. This enables you to more effectively find the data that is relevant to you, making Live Maps more useful than ever. Even better -- it's just plain fun," Microsoft revealed.

Virtual Earth 3D (Beta) is available for download here.