David Gray
david.gray at tpg.com.au
Wed Sep 20 22:42:26 CDT 2006
Try http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/ and http://local.live.com/
David Gray
96 Springacre Rd
Thornlands QLD
Yahoo ID: flock_it_software
-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Borge Hansen
Sent: Thursday, 21 September 2006 1:46 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: [AccessD] OT? Mappoint - Virtual Earth - and Access Db
Hello List,
This may be a somewhat OT, but here it is:
I've been asked to come up with a solution for showing information coming
from an Access Db onto Maps.
In a nutshell :
We have Acme Enterprises that operates a number of Acme Centres over a large
geographical area. Around 20,000 people are employed in total. Each day
around 2.5% of the work force due to sickness and other reasons for not
turning up need to be replaced by relief staff. We have : permanent relief
staff, casual relief staff and relief sourced through agencies
We need to show various types of information on a map for a particular
region:
- all Acme Centres in the region (pinned to their location address)
- For a particular Acme Centre the available pool of permanent and casual
relief staff (each pinned to their home address) and various info about each
person (available or not, highest qualification (worker, team manager,
centre manager) etc. .... etc....
So the web page showing a map has to be rendered in a suitable zoom level,
and data pulled from an Access Db will give the necessary information to
create some pushpins in various shapes and colours ... off the top of my
head for example: for staff various shape according to qualification and
different colour according to whether available or not; and yet another
shape for displaying an Acme Centre.....
Now, the question is what tools to use?
I've been just starting looking into (i.e. reading about mostly) Mappoint
2006, Mappoint Web Services and Virtual Earth - and all is totally new to
me.
Microsoft's Mappoint 2006 only have maps for North America and Europe. We
need it for Downunder! As I understand it it's a desktop application with a
lot of functionality :
- Enter an address and it will give you the latitude, longitude coordinates
- Different types of pushpins to display on the maps
- Many built in functions and 3rd party add ins for performing a wide
variety of tasks and optimization calculations
?? Does anyone know if and when an Australia / New Zealand map set will be
available?
Then there is MS Mappoint Webservices - I've downloaded the SDK and
established a developer account with MS and will have a closer look.... but
I understand a subscription license is somewhere in the five digit
figures.... Any one having experience with this?
Then there is MS Virtual Earth..... which is the application (?) I've been
poking at the most:
I came across the following example of overlaying pushpins from Mappoint
2006 onto Virtual Eath Map:
http://www.gilleskohl.de/mappoint/PinsToFile2006/Samples/Addressestable.htm
Gilles' add-in can be found here:
http://www.gilleskohl.de/mappoint/PinsToFile2006/
I imported the source from the htm web page above into Frontpage, allowed
active content, and pre-viewing it in the browser I get the same map
rendering. Too easy...
But I can't make use of his pinstofile function because... no map set for
Australia!
I read the following article by Chandu Thota introducing Virtual Earth APIs:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/09/EarthlyDelights/default.aspx
which gives a very good intro to the whole subject...
Now, instead of viewing all of US as the starting map by changing (from the
source view of Addressestable.htm) : the ShowMap function to the following,
we are now rendering a map starting in our backyard and zoomed to a suitable
level
*****code snip *****
function ShowMap()
{
map = new VEMap('pinsToFileMap');
map.LoadMap(new VELatLong(-28.000344,153.408422), 15, "r",
false);
AddPins();
}
***********************
and if you want some pushpins to appear on the eastcoast of Australia you
can try to insert these lines in the function Addpins()
****snip**** beware of linebreaks
AddPin(-28.025344,153.412311,'Sherri Hart Trey
Research','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>501 Corporate Centre
Drive</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Franklin</td></tr><tr><td><b>Stat
e</b></td><td>TN</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>37067</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.050344,153.412311,'Paul West Litware,
Inc.','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>312 Walnut
Street</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Cincinatti</td></tr><tr><td><b>S
tate</b></td><td>OH</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>45202</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.075344,153.412311,'John Fortune Wide World
Importers','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>205 North
Williamsburg</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Bloomington</td></tr><tr><
td><b>State</b></td><td>IL</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>61704</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.100344,153.412311,'Don Funk Woodgrove
Bank','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>One City Place Drive
</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Creve
Coeur</td></tr><tr><td><b>State</b></td><td>MO</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>63141</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.125344,153.412311,'Kim Akers A. Datum
Corporation','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>8300 Norman
Center
Drive</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Bloomington</td></tr><tr><td><b>S
tate</b></td><td>MN</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>55437</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.150344,153.412311,'Pat Coleman Baldwin Museum of
Science','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>10260 SW Greenburg
Road
</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Portland</td></tr><tr><td><b>State</b>
</td><td>OR</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>97223</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.175344,153.412311,'Elizabeth Boyle Lucerne
Publishing','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>205 108th Ave NE
</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Bellevue</td></tr><tr><td><b>State</b>
</td><td>WA</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>98004</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
AddPin(-28.200344,153.412311,'John Kelly Adventure
Works','<table><tr><td><b>Street Address</b></td><td>One Perimeter Park
South</td></tr><tr><td><b>City</b></td><td>Birmingham</td></tr><tr><td><b>St
ate</b></td><td>AL</td></tr><tr><td><b>ZIP
Code</b></td><td>35243</td></tr><tr><td><b>Country</b></td><td>US</td></tr><
/table>','000');
*********
So, what I am thinking at this point is that the API set for Virtual Earth
appear easy to work with and it's free!
????
But:
1) How do we get latitude and longitude coordinates for a large number of
records? Is there any third party software that will go through address
information file and return lat long coordinates for an Australian map set?
2) Sample of code structure that will read Access table / query and give us
data - similar to the data 'hardcoded' into the function "function
AddPins()" in the htm source code:
.....
Thanks for reading on .... If any one has input or pointers where to get
more information .... much appreciated.....
Regards
Borge
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