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Microsoft releases 3-D replicas of cities
NEW PRODUCT, RELEASED TODAY, MAY TRUMP GOOGLE EARTH
By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News
Microsoft
A 3-D view of San Jose from inside Microsoft's Virtual Earth.
High resolution 3-D view of San Jose from inside Microsoft's Virtual Earth (1.25 MB)
Microsoft upped the ante on its competition with Google on Monday, revealing an advanced project to create three-dimensional cyber replicas of cities all over the world.
Fifteen American cities went online at maps.live.com at 2 p.m., including San Jose, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Seattle. Microsoft plans to produce 100 cities by next summer.
People given an early peek said the project trumped Google Earth, which provides 3-D replicas of some buildings in some cities created by users of its SketchUp modeling product.
``They have out-innovated Google,'' said Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence, a research and consulting firm focusing on online advertising and local search sites.
During a recent visit to the Bay Area, Microsoft general manager Stephen Lawler used an X-Box controller to demonstrate how a person could fly through San Francisco exactly as if they were playing a very sophisticated video game.
``As I come to this corner, I can actually see what we are looking at on the street level,'' Lawler said. ``We think people are going to be very excited.''
Lawler, who heads Virtual Earth's team of research scientists and engineers, said the cities are built using automated computer algorithms that extract precise architectural features and measurements from images taken from airplanes flying over the cities and from trucks driving the streets.
``First we constructed the buildings, then we worked with the textures and enhanced the pictures,'' Lawler said. ``There's a lot of science in putting the pictures back onto the buildings.'' Lawler said the average cost of producing a city was $150,000, which he said was about one tenth the cost of current manual methods.
To experience one of the virtual cities, people will need a computer with a minimum of 512 megabytes of memory and a processor running at the minimum speed of 1 gigahertz. They will also need a current version of Microsoft's browsers: Windows Internet Explorer versions 6 or 7.
The first time a person switches to the 3-D mode, he or she will have to download a bit of software known as a ``managed control.'' With the code, a person can toggle between the current 2-D ``bird's eye'' view and the new 3-D experience.
While Google Earth offers similar 3-D terrain features as Microsoft's Virtual Earth, it has not publicly revealed the existence of an automated program for creating cities. However, John Hanke, Google's head of geographic products, said it would be a mistake to assume that Google does not have a competitive effort under way.
Meanwhile, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is describing the 3-D effort as a way to take Internet search ``to an entirely new level.'' In a statement released Tuesday, Gates said, the cities would deliver ``better experiences not only for consumers but also for developers and advertisers.''
Microsoft intends to sell advertising in these new virtual cities, using virtual billboards that can be used to promote everything from major brands to a discount on a particular product that an individual consumer may be searching to buy. A handful of advertisers -- Fox Entertainment, Zip Realty, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and John L. Scott -- are participating the cities' debut.
``We are just going to experiment at first,'' Lawler said. ``You can imagine a billboard on SBC Park and you click it and get tickets to the ball game...You can imagine a Nike `Just Do It' ad on top of Mt. Rainier.''
The opportunity for site-specific geographic targeting, might be especially useful for small local businesses, Lawler added. Google Earth recently began selling text-based business ads that are triggered by local searches.
Microsoft will be publishing a guide to the API for Virtual Earth, software code that would allows outside developers to write applications, sometimes referred to as mashups, that could work with the 3-D program.
Michael Pegg, who publishes a blog called gmapsmania.blogspot.com that focuses on 2-D mashups made with Google Maps, said adding 3-D capabilities is likely to take current enthusiasm for 2-D mashups to a new level as developers find ways to better simulate real world experiences, such as visiting a doctor, attending a meeting at city hall or browsing in a book store.
Think about the aging population, think about people with disabilities, think about gridlock,'' Pegg mused. ``With baby boomers getting older, a large population of people will be losing their mobility, and this could be the best thing for them.''
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