IDV Silverlight Demo II…Draw Tools!

 

http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/

It’s out!  Check out the new draw features in the IDV Solutions Silverlight Demo.  We’ve been working on some fun new draw tools in an effort to learn about Silverlight.  We are excited about the direction Silverlight is taking and the increased controls offered in Blend.  This demo is using the latest build of Silverlight, Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2.  Make sure you have the right player (you can install it here)

So we have the same fun navigation scheme as before, where you can zoom and spin and fling the earth the way you always wanted.  But now you can draw and export your map drawings to other map applications.  Anyways, here are some descriptions of the draw tools…

 

The Draw Panel along the right of the screen lets you turn the drawing feature on or off, select the type of feature to draw, and ultimately export the drawing as a KML file.Expanding the carrot next to each of the three geometry types expands a sidewalk that holds some visual variables, in this case color.  But someday each square of the sidewalk will hold a category of visual variable, like color, size, transparency…and that square of the sidewalk can expand as well.
If you want to change the color of something after you have drawn it, then select it and open the color sidewalk and choose something else.

To delete any item that you’ve drawn, select it to show its data window and select "erase."  When erased, points erupt into a cloud of destruction.  Lines and polygons just disappear into the ether.  Forever.  If you want to delete individual tics along a line or area, select it then click the delete key.  Above, I am obliterating a point feature that I had dropped in the Alleghenies.

 

Drop points all over the map.  When you add a point, a window appears asking for some descriptive information.  Fill it in -or don’t.  Clicking and holding an existing point picks it up for re-positioning.  If the pushpin did not lift up when it was time to move, then large canyons would be gouged throughout the world.  Above, I am moving a point symbol onto home plate at Comerica Park.

 

    

Here I am tracing the land area of Martha’s Vineyard and delineating the DMZ between North and South Korea.  I double-clicked to stop drawing a feature, then I filled in the info box associated with each feature.

 

   

When drawing lines and areas, click a path on the map to trace out your line in the map by clicking to drop a tic (or bend in the line).  Double-click to stop drawing the line or area.  Between each tic is a ghost tic option, if you want to add more detail to the line or area.  By drawing from general to specific, you can rough in an area then zoom in and activate those ghost tics for loads of detail.  Here, I roughed out South America, then positioned my ghost tics to add more and more details.  Then I zoomed in and added even more detail.  It is addictive.

 

At any point I can save my drawing as a KML file.  Above, I have generated the shape of Michigan that I drew as a KML file and loaded it into Virtual Earth Live Maps.

***UPDATE***
Now you can export your drawings as an SQL Server 2008-ready spatial script!!  Get ready to live.

So again, here is the URL to the demo: http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/
and here is the URL to the latest Silverlight player: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=2.0

 

John Nelson / IDV Solutions / john.nelson@idvsolutions.com