Map This!::: MSN/Virtual Earth maps support

August 19th, 2006, 08:03 Posted By: deniska

More excellent MAP This News - From the release of Deniska`s GPS Map Viewer for the PSP, heres his latest newspost:

I have updated the scripts section with a new cygwin script, which gets the maps from MSN maps/ Virtual Earth engine (http://local.live.com)

usage:
./getVEmap.sh [latitude] [longitude] [base zoom] [map size]
example:
./getVEmap.sh 40.619442 -73.970926 1 16
latitude/longitude must be in decimal format
base zoom: 0-16
map size: number of 256x256 pix tiles in 1 row
map size: 16 will create an equivalent of 4096x4096 pixel map at base zoom
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You'll need to install cygwin (cygwin.com) and Java (JRE) from java.sun.com to run the script.
Both distributions are free and there are plenty of instructions & tutorials on how to set them up.

MSN Maps/ Virtual Earth seem to have a better than Google coverage of some areas, for example: Eastern Europe.

Here is a screenshot of a map for Riga, Latvia, which, according to Google just does not exist :-) :


Go to http://local.live.com to check the coverage for your area..
Once you find your map, you can get the GPS coordinates this way:
1) Center your map on the location you want.
2) Click on "Share" tab and select "View Permalink"
3) You'll get something like: _http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=56.945724~24.145804&style=r&lvl=15&scene=1935198&rtp=null~null - The highlighted number are the coordinates that you'll need for the getVEmap.sh script

Here is the same area mapped my Google and MSN:



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