Telerik blogs

Q3 2009 was an exciting release for the Data Visualization Team here at Telerik. My colleague Vladimir already highlighted the most notable new features and improvements to our charting solution and now I would like to draw your attention to one of our newest additions to the control suite – RadMap for Silverlight.

Here are the main highlights:

  • Map Sources support – RadMap for Silverlight allows you to visualize rich geographical information from external geo imagery sources.
    • VEMapProvider (Bing Maps)

Click to open the RadMap Dashboard Example 

  • EmptyProvider – the Map control also supports empty provider that is not connected to any real imagery service; thanks to this feature you can visualize shapes of continents, countries, regions etc even if you don’t have a Bing Map license.

    Click to open RadMap EmptyProvider Example 

    • InformationLayer – the information layer allows you to add any FrameworkElement and/or MapShape object on the map surface, setting their geographical coordinates.

    Click to open RadMap InformationLayer Example 

    •  DynamicLayer – the dynamic layer provides support for items virtualization (items are only loaded when the region of the map they belong to is visible).

    Click to open RadMap Item Virtualization Example 

    • Kml Data import – RadMap provides support for stunning map overlays through its KML-import feature.  Once you have the desired set of features (placemarks, images, polygons, textual descriptions, etc.) encoded in KML, you can easily import the data and visualize it through the Map control.

    Click to open RadMap Kml Import Example

    • Pan and Zoom – RadMap supports panning and zooming through the mouse, the keyboard and the onscreen navigation controls.
    • Navigation and command controls
      • The MapNavigation control can be used to pan and zoom the map. The same can be done with the mouse as well.
      • The MapCommandBar control can be used to switch the two map views: aerial and road view. When in aerial view the labels can be enabled or disabled.
      • The MapScale control indicates how the distance on a map relates to the actual real-world distance.
      • RadMap supports flexible layout as well – you can customize the location of all navigation controls and even you can place them outside the control itself.

    While the control is still in CTP stage, we are really excited with all the possibilities that are opening up and we would be glad to hear your feedback here or in the public forums so we can shape this control into a prime mapping solution for its official release in Q1 2010. Give the control a spin and let us know what would you like to see improved, what is missing or what problems are you facing with RadMap spikes that you are currently working on.

    Maybe you need support for Google Maps or OpenStreetMap provider, or you would like to build your own custom map providers from scratch? Maybe you need UI improvements like compass or mini-map? Maybe you would benefit mostly from integrated databinding support or integrated searching / routing API? Or maybe you have another brilliant idea to share with us? :)

    Thanks.


    About the Author

    Manol Donev

    Technical Lead,
    WinCore Team

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