WPF Mapping Solutions

Last year I did a post on how to work with maps using WPF. I wanted to give an update for everyone that is interested in working with maps. Actually it is a list of links to some useful resources. But let me first tell you a bit more what I have been doing with this mapping the last couple of months. After working with the map control that was posted here, I started all over again making a control that was more suitable for the multi-touch projects I have been working on. (see also http://weblog.tno.nl/nui). Most of the tiling I had done off course, but I needed an efficient way for zooming & panning using the typical multi-touch gestures. After some refactoring I was quite happy with it and I could use it within my projects.

At the same time some very clever people published their mapping solutions. I want to point out two projects that I highly recommend to anyone who want to use mapping within wpf:

First there is Brutile a project started by Paul den Dulk. Paul has created implementations for both wpf, windows forms and Microsoft Surface. Besides Virtual Earth tiles, he also shows how to use OpenStreetMap as a source. (if you are interested in OpenStreetMap, check out http://cloudmade.com/) I have been playing around with Brutile for a few days now and I’m quite happy with it. 

Another mapping solution is brought to you by InfoStrat. Instead of implementing a tiling mechanism they created a managed wrapper around Microsoft Virtual Earth control. This gives you all the power & performance of this google earth competitor, including 3D buildings, smooth zoom, road/aerial views, etc. On their codeplex site they have included samples for both wpf & ms surface. One drawback is that at this moment you are very limited in adding content to the map. You can use PushPins and with some searching I managed to draw polylines and polygones, but I’m actually waiting for their next release when they want to support geoRSS, WMS and KML.

For those that use Silverlight, there are even some better solutions that you can use in your projects. At the MIX09, microsoft introduced the Virtual Earth Silverlight Map Control. It is based on Deep Zoom which gives it a very smooth navigation experience. Similar projects are DeepEarth and ArcGIS API for Silverlight by ESRI