Key Links

• To download: http://dev.live.com/tools and download the Windows Live Tools CTP release.
• For a Developer Evaluation account (to access Traffic): https://mappoint-css.live.com/mwssignup/ (requires Live ID)
• Go ahead and grab your token Tutorial here.
http://blog.geoffreyemery.com/post/Virtual-Earth-Web-Services---Requesting-a-Token.aspx

To give feedback: https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/default.aspx?SiteID=505

Feature Overview

· Visual Studio toolbox - Map control is available right in your toolbox of Visual Studio

· Drag and drop control onto your web page - You can drag and drop the control from toolbox onto your web page and set some properties and you are ready to go.

· Server side events - Server side events for panning/zooming, find/directions are available in addition to client side events for the map control.

· Display and control the map - You can control how map displays on your web page with standard functionality like MapMode (2D/3D), MapStyle(Road/Aerial), displaying dashboard and setting its size, setting the zoom levels, zooming in/out, panning etc.

· Adding shapes to the map - You can add shapes to map from ASP.NET Server Side using provided methods. You can query different shapes/layers in the Map and delete them as well.

· Using directions - You can get the directions between multiple points using methods GetDirections. You can specify different routing options like distance unit, color etc. Once the direction information is received, Map control raises event OnServerDirections where you can process/render the returned information in way that suites your scenario.

· Using local search and mapping results - Map control provides with find method where you can search for local businesses in a specified location.

· Working with bird's eyes - Map control has support for bird's eye view similar to JavaScript control.

· Getting Traffic information - You can get traffic information and display on your web page. For this, you need to have an account with Virtual Earth Platform. You first need to get a client token:

Important: To get a Developer Evaluation account for Virtual Earth go to this link here and request one, https://mappoint-css.live.com/mwssignup/

· You can then use this client token to display the traffic of the location you are interested in:

Development stage

The suite of tools is currently a community technology preview, which means they would love feedback, but strongly discourage any web site from going live using these controls.

Original Post By Mark Brown… Reposting here for SEO… Mark has left VE Team so please Contact Chris Pendleton over at VE Blog

All this and more to come in the following tutorials