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May 28, 2007

Microsoft Live Takes New York 3D

Duncan Riley

33 comments »

livesearch.jpgMicrosoft has announced the launch of new functionality for Microsoft Live Search Maps; three-dimensional, photo-realistic maps covering New York City and 8 other locations in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

The 3D service provides a unique look at each city, that combined with Microsoft’s location and business data delivers a service that would have once upon a time have been considered science fiction fantasy.

The launch keeps Microsoft one step ahead of Google in 3D mapping. Google acquired 3D technology from a Stanford University team May 18 that will provide similar functionality for Google. 3D modeling at Google Maps does not currently include photo realism.

The 3-D imagery of New York City debuts with Austin, Cape Coral (Florida), Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Northampton (UK), Ottawa, Savannah and Tampa. More cities worldwide will be added to the service during the northern summer.

First impressions: extremely slow if you’re not on a very high speed connection at the highest setting, but the computer generated effects are amazing.

3d1.jpg3d2.jpg

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. sean percival

    May 28th, 2007 at 11:40 pm

    wow thats pretty cool

    runs great!

    although i have 512 on the video and 3GB RAM

  2. Dan Grossman

    May 28th, 2007 at 11:45 pm

    Impressive!

  3. Steve S

    May 28th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

    That’s the issue I’m having with it, the rendering is slow on the poor old laptop. Then again, while cool, it’s very rare that I actually need a scale model of New York rendered in 3D.

    The fact that they got this out before Google, considering how long Google has had the ability to do this is a real shot in the arm.

    Dare I say it, way to go Microsoft.

  4. David Liwenstein

    May 28th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    What’s Yahoo’s tortoise response to this?

    Very cool MSFT. Can’t believe I’m actually saying that…

  5. Duncan Riley

    May 29th, 2007 at 12:42 am

    For the record my rig is an AMD 64bit 3400+ with 2gb of RAM on a 2mb Cable connection (fastest I can get). Slow as a wet weekend but I noted that context in the post because if you’re on ADSL 2+ or similar fast broadband I’d expect this to be a lot faster. Imagine this in Flight Simulator! :-)

    And David, I’m with you!

  6. Pallab

    May 29th, 2007 at 12:54 am

    But is 3D necessarily better?
    In a city like NewYork with a lot of high buildings, I doubt that 3D maps are going to increase productivity. Yes, it looks cool. But, finding places is probably a lot harder in 3D view as the tall structures obstruct your view this hiding many spots. And also it looks more cluttered.

  7. Hari

    May 29th, 2007 at 1:15 am

    It is pretty slow for me. It shud be, as i have very low configs

  8. Ryan

    May 29th, 2007 at 1:59 am

    This reminds me when Google Maps added the aerial view (what was that, like 3 years ago?). I thought it was cool looking and messed around with it for a good couple of hours, looking at all of the places I’ve lived and visited. Since that day, I very rarely go into the aerial view mode because it’s not providing me any real value beyond its novelty. I think I feel the same way about this. I just spent a couple hours zooming around New York and San Francisco because it looked neat. But I don’t know what’s beyond the whoa.

  9. Fourpips

    May 29th, 2007 at 3:21 am

    Thats awsome - I wonder how long it will take Google to do the same for my town in wales :P

  10. Tom

    May 29th, 2007 at 3:49 am

    Why the hell have they picked Northampton?

  11. Andy

    May 29th, 2007 at 5:35 am

    I was about to log on and say exactly the same thing — Northampton’s hardly Manhattan. I’d have liked to have seen Manchester, but I’m biased.

  12. pallet jack

    May 29th, 2007 at 6:41 am

    Yeah ran well on my / 1 gig ram / 64 meg video card / old as hell laptop

    - Looks like they are ahead / on this - but how much will it matter / I would still rather be Google than Microsoft

  13. IT News Sweden What.se

    May 29th, 2007 at 6:46 am

    Didn’t work on my 1GB RAM Laptop. Bah. Just fuzzy 3D-images over NYC and Austin.

  14. xxdesmus

    May 29th, 2007 at 6:47 am

    Booyah, yet again Microsoft beats Google to the punch…each that Google.

  15. datter

    May 29th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    Worked fine for me, but although 3d building business is neat I can’t say it is actually helpful in any way at all. I still prefer GoogleEarth… it just feels better somehow.

  16. Niklas

    May 29th, 2007 at 11:30 am

    This blew my mind.

    And that’s something really special when it comes to MS applications.

  17. wayne lambright

    May 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    wow, this is also totally cool. it just keeps getting better.

  18. RaJesh Anandakrishnan

    May 29th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    MC always rocks, I have seen this application. its really cool.

    http://www.suggestusability.com

  19. tim

    May 29th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    This is not new. MSFT First launched 3-D maps last fall for San Francisco and a handful of other cities. Then 14 additional cities launched a couple months ago. Today’s announcement is only that NYC and a few others join the list.

    http://blog.kelseygroup.com/in.....francisco/

  20. listikal

    May 29th, 2007 at 5:21 pm

    Honestly, aren’t we making this a little to available to the rest of the world if you know what mean? I mean, what purpose does this serve for the everyday user?

  21. Ajay Raghuwanshi

    May 29th, 2007 at 10:39 pm

    Its great. Will be a drastic change in IT.
    Lovly and amazing…
    it is very difficult to maintain as well and to incorporate new development.

    All the best to Microsoft Team…

  22. TEGTE

    June 4th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    SOS PLEASE SOME ONE HELP ME ITS NOT NOT HEALHTY YHE WAY U MAKING ME FEEL

  23. klhzydgvnt

    June 18th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! qsndfajoyebyi

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