The European Environment Agency (EEA) launched the Eye on Earth – Water Watch campaign for Europe. The idea is that everyone gets information about bathing site all over Europe.
Through the new portal users can rate beaches and share their comments with others. So it is easy to get an overview about the cleanness of a beach. From the technological site EEA is working together with Microsoft using their Virtual Earth platform to visualize geographic information. Everyone can monitor beach water quality along the coasts and of lakes and report quality concerns.
Water quality of the Wörthersee. Click on the image for larger view.
Official introduction on the homepage of the EEA:
Every year, millions of Europeans spend their summer vacations by coastal or inland waters. The quality of the bathing water at their destination can be a key factor in deciding where to go. Now with Eye on Earth, holidaymakers will not only be able to check the latest information available on the water quality at their possible destinations, but also read comments posted by others who have already been there.
“Bathing water information is only a first step in our collaboration with Microsoft. We will gradually expand this two-way communication platform to include other environmental information, such as biodiversity and air quality”, said Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the EEA.
The bathing water application retrieves information from more than 21,000 monitoring points across Europe. For all these bathing sites, the portal presents information from recent years. For some countries, including Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Portugal and Slovakia, the portal also displays the latest 2008 rating available.
Eye on Earth allows users to zoom in on a given section of the coast or riverbank, both in street map or bird’s eye viewing formats. A ‘traffic-light’ evaluation (red, amber, green) of water quality based on scientific monitoring methods is supported by similar ratings reflecting the experiences of people who have visited the bathing site.
As part of the five-year partnership announced last May, the EEA and Microsoft will continue to develop the Eye on Earth portal by adding new sets of environmental information.
Link: http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/heading-for-your-favourite-beach-is-the-bathing-water-clean
Yesterday the first news came up that Graz and Vienna are now available in 3D. Virtual Earth was enhanced with the datasets of these cities.
The 3D information is derived from areal photographs recored in different angles.
Written and Submitted at CUAS, using their Network Infrastructure.
Today Microsoft has updated their Webmapping service Virtual Earth to version 6.1. In this actual version lots of new functions were integrated. Now the service should be working also on Safari and Internet Explorer 8 Beta. New photographies are integrated and the 3D function is improved. Additional useres can generated their own maps and share them with other internet users.
A shot summery of important changes:
- 3D
- More realistic due improved textures and 3d Trees.
- Improved Representation of Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Dallas, TX; und Denver. Another 250 cities should follow shortly, hopefully also Vienna.
- Make your own 3D routes with 15 to 30 fps.
- Improved Support of Birds-Eye
- Birds-Eye
- Hybrid-View with Birds-Eye to view street names.
- Platform Browser Support: Support of Safari 3 und IE 8.0.
- Collections: Upload your personal map on Virtual Earth and publish it on Virtual Earth Collections. For this use MapCruncher from MS research, which you can download here. An Example: Crunch sample including Seattle Transit
- New Routing functionality
- Walking-Direction
- Routing considering traffic. Using ClearFlow-Technology to integrate traffic information from traffic.com. Example: SeaTac to UW
- Improved Language Support for Walking-Routes/Routes in 15 Languages including: German, English, French, Spanish, Portugese and Italian.
- Geocoding: The new reverse Geocoding-Support enables to convert Longitude and Latitude into an Adress.
- Improved Search: New data from Zagat and Yep included, two sources for restaurants. Example: Reviews of Papa John’s in Redmond
- SDK-Update: New functions for developers with the SDK.
[via winfuture.de]
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
Mapchannels has developed a great Google Maps and Virtual Earth hack, which allows to navigate parallel.
You can see my example here:http://www.joesonic.com/2_dualmap_en.php
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
Microsofts Virtual Earth recently has updated their image data. Now all austrian host cities of the Euro 2008 tournament can be viewed in high relolution bird’s eye view (e.g. Klagenfurt, Innsbruck). But this is no real 3D city model. For the next update (maybe mid of April) it is planned to make Vienna available in 3D. The software company Microsoft wants to integrate the location of the Euro 2008 finale as 3D city model in their online mapping platform Virtual Earth. Vienna will then be the first city in central europe availabe in 3D.
[via derStandard]
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
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