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I want to write a standalone application (preferable in C#) displaying a Google or Bing Map showing flight paths and patterns in 3D.

  1. For Google this is possible in JavaScript embedded in HTML, as shown here: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/
  2. The Google Web Services allow me to determine distances and routes, but no visualization as I would need it (this is how I understand it, I might be wrong).
  3. The same as in 1 seems to be true for the Bing AJAX controls ("JavaScript in Web page").
  4. The Bing SOAP Services again seem to be the equivalent to 2, more focused on textual queries rather than displaying the maps. There is the Imagery service, but this looks more low level, not like a 3D globe I could modify.
  5. In stackoverflow article " best api for develop with maps web application google-maps vs bing-maps " are some links about the APIs, but nothing .net focused.

Is anybody aware of a .NET/C# API which allows me to do basically the same as in 1/3 with C#?

Community
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Horst Walter
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3 Answers3

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Not 100% sure on all the capabilities but checkout GMap.NET. Open source, I've played around with it a little and it seems pretty good.

Ian
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  • If you do use it, I found the WinForm implementation to be much faster than the WPF control, just in case your using WPF. – Ian Jun 27 '11 at 14:49
  • Thanks, also the project seems to be vital and continuously improving. I'll post an update here once I have tested it, which might take some days... – Horst Walter Jun 27 '11 at 15:01
  • Good stuff, yeah, I contributed a little a while back to try and get some serialization in there and the author was pretty helpful if you're willing to help out, although I did have to give him a reminder to merge my changes in. – Ian Jun 27 '11 at 15:07
  • Some update: The software is great, however there seems to be a legal issue with Google Maps: http://greatmaps.codeplex.com/discussions/252531 No Google maps of course is a kind of drawback. – Horst Walter Jun 28 '11 at 17:29
  • Just not to confuse other readers, Google MAPS and GMap is technically working fine, only it is recommended IMHO to read through the legal discussion and decide whether it is acceptable for anybody's particular use case. – Horst Walter Jul 02 '11 at 11:32
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I'm not sure if you're considering commercial components or not, but I happened across Telerik's RadMap the other day. It supports Bing Maps, I believe.

NickAldwin
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  • Thanks, seems to be similar in functionality to the above, but commercial. So I take my chances with GMap first, but I really appreciate your help. – Horst Walter Jun 27 '11 at 16:00
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Depending on exactly what your definition of "standalone" is, how about creating an out-of-browser application based on the Bing Maps Silverlight control? See http://www.microsoft.com/maps/isdk/silverlight/ for SDK and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681884.aspx for method reference.

It would certainly meet your aim of creating a "Bing Maps"-style application coding in C#, but I believe it would still need to be delivered to the client over HTTP.

Alastair Aitchison
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