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2aVirtual Earth will ultimately become a virtual ‘world,’ collectingand organizing a wealth of information about Earth and the cities andtowns we have built on it. People will count on Virtual Earth in theireveryday lives for many things. They will use it to plan their travel andto visit places they might otherwise only dream of. They will play videogames using realistic representations of any city or town in the world.They will even be able to add content themselves, uploading imagesfrom mobile phones — a ‘living, evolving’ virtual world.Businesses will use Virtual Earth as a focused means to find andcontact the consumers who need their products most. Imagine makinga dinner reservation and routinely reserving a table based on ‘virtually’sitting at different tables to select the best view. Companies will improvethe efficiency of their operations by using Virtual Earth to access the latestweather and environmental information associated with their manufacturingand shipping activities. The government, a very large user ofgeospatial information today, will depend increasingly on Virtual Earthas the source for their custom application needs. Even the science communitywill employ Virtual Earth as the starting point for a wide rangeof scientific analyses and modeling. And it will help everyone to betterunderstand every last corner of the planet on which they live.The Virtual Earth vision is built on large volumes of high-resolutionimagery. With this in mind, Microsoft began establishing partnershipswith key imagery providers more than a year ago. On May 23, 2005,Microsoft and Pictometry International (Rochester, N.Y.) announced afive-year agreement to license Pictometry’s existing and new nationwideaerial images for use in Virtual Earth. Pictometry captures up to 12 viewsof land features in a given area, each at a different angle. This oblique imageryprovides Virtual Earth users with aerial views in a 3D-like manner,allowing them to see around objects within their search area of interest.Microsoft next partnered with ORBIMAGE (now merged withSpace Imaging to form Dulles, Va.-based GeoEye), announcing onJune 29, 2005, a 5-year agreement to incorporate the company’s globallibrary of high-resolution satellite images into Virtual Earth. At thetime the deal was signed, Microsoft had access to OrbView-2 and Orb-View-3 imagery. Now, Microsoft also has access to GeoEye’s IKONOSarchive and will have access to even higher resolution imagery fromGeoEye-1 when it is launched early next year.Microsoft then entered into a third five-year agreement. This time itwas with EarthData (Frederick, Md.), one of the largest U.S. aerial mappingcompanies. The agreement provides access to EarthData’s new andarchived LiDAR and radar data, as well as map production support.Microsoft’s commitment to Virtual Earth also goes beyond theseagreements to include acquisitions of companies chosen to round outinternal capabilities. On December 23, 2005, Microsoft announcedFigure 2a At the front end of the Vexcel fully digitalworkflow are the UltraCam-X and UltraCam-D largeformat digital aerial cameras, and the UltraScan5000precision photogrammetric scanner.Figure 1 Windows Live Local ‘street-side’feature presents imagery in a split-screen navigationwindow.In the upper navigation pane, users can tourtheir destinations through street-level imagery. In thelower navigation pane, users can alternate betweenthree navigation vehicles—race car, sports car, andwalk-by—for varied approaches to using location information.This screen shows San Francisco viewed froma sports car. Note that the image on the front cover ofthis magazine may also be used within Virtual Earth.w w w . i m a g i n g n o t e s . c o ms u m m e r 2 0 0 621