Automatically Detect Roads with Bing Aerial Imagery

We’re excited to announce access to an experimental service which can automatically derive street vector data from Bing aerial imagery. Simply put; this means you can derive the position and curves of a road by specifying the end points. Here’s a simple video to demonstrate what’s happening;

We’re looking forward to see what the developer community does with this, especially editors of OpenStreetMap. You can find the service and documentation here. Let us know how you like it!

Google Developer Day US – KML Search and Dev. Maps Mashups

“KML Search and Developing Maps Mashups Using KML/GeoRSS Pamela Fox, Lior Ron Have you been wondering how to drive traffic to that cool maps mashup you created recently? Simple, make it searchable. We now index geospatial content on the web and show it as search results to users on both Google Earth and Google Maps

Geoportal Extension to Become Open Source

Despite code documentation and samples as included on the Geoportal Resource Center, implementers of the Geoportal Extension have continued asking for source code access to support integration with content management systems, map viewers, desktop etc.

Esri listened to these requests and I am happy to be able to announce that:

the Geoportal Extension will enter a next phase in its evolution and become a Free and Open Source solution from Esri.

Seven years ago we created what was then called the GIS Portal Toolkit as a software and services solution, based on code from a number of earlier projects and prototypes for data discovery and map viewing.