Microsoft Mappoint 2009 – Hopefully useful for back-end location database
Just been looking at using Mappoint (again!) for the back end location system. Some good improvements have been made in this version in comparison to the previous version I’ve got (2004) – a major improvement is that it now supports 3D-mapping (ala TomTom) although it remains to be seen whether it can be used when used inside another program.
So far it’s only bad news. The latest version of MapPoint still doesn’t appear to be available as a .Net component – just an old style COM object.
Not only that, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to try out any of it’s functionality, because the European version doesn’t appear to have the COM component properly included in the distribution. After initially thinking it might be a Windows 7 + Visual Studio 2008 problem further research indicates that it’s actually MapPoint 2009 Europe itself.
Next step is to get hold of Mappoint 2009 North American version (thankfully free for me via MSDNAA) and see if installing that fixes the problem. If it does, then I’ll soon see if the COM object exposes all the new, wonderful 3D mapping features. However, given the dire documentation which doesn’t appear to have been updated since Mappoint 2004 I won’t hold my breath!
January 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am
I honestly did not realize there is a 3D view — I’ll have to look into that!
Eric
http://www.mp2kmag.com – the Magazine for MapPoint
January 26th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Hi Eric,
Yes it does – and even a full screen navigation mode. Yet to test it out in the real world though!
Steve
January 27th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
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