

The original version lacked many of its distinguishing features, including birds' eye view and 3D maps, and the Collections functionality was limited to a single "Scratchpad" of points of interest. Its original stand out feature was the aerial imagery. It was a continuation of previous Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft MapPoint and TerraServer.

Other free maps you may be interested: Bing Driving Directions, Google maps, Google Driving Directions.Windows Live Local Beta, showing aerial imageryīing Maps was originally launched as MSN Virtual Earth, which was released for beta testing on July 24, 2005. Read more about Bing Maps here on Wikipedia. Also, very popular and useful service for the users to show public user-created points of interest.Ĭurrently, these five street map views are available on Bing Maps: Road View (default map view, displays vector imagery of roads, buildings, and geography), Aerial View (overlays satellite imagery onto the Bing Map and highlights roads, major landmarks for easy identification amongst the satellite images), Bird’s Eye View (displays aerial imagery captured from low-flying aircraft), StreetSide View (provides 360-degree imagery of street-level scenes), and 3D View (allows users to see the environment (e.g. Bing Maps also include certain points of interest, such as underground stations, stadiums, hospitals, and other facilities. Users of Bing Maps can browse and search topographically-shaded street maps for a huge amount of cities worldwide. This is usually noticeable in those worldwide locations that have undergone rapid recent development or experienced for example natural disasters recently, since its last image-update. However, the necessary timelapse before images are updated means that aerial and Bird's-Eye images for a particular location can sometimes be several years out-of-date.


The search process can also be guided using local directories for numerous categories ( like restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, retail stores, etc.).īing maps update being released on roughly a monthly basis. For relevant searches, the user will also automatically see a description of the landmark or place if a relevant Wikipedia article exists. Search queries on Bing Maps often include addresses, business contact information, and reviews for businesses and landmarks collected by Microsoft and it’s users community. Search results on Bing Maps appear both on a left-side rail and also as pushpins right on the map to show their exact location(s). The search box tool at the top of Bing Maps can be used to easily find places, businesses, and landmarks to show on the maps. Bing Maps is free a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines with the following, very popular services: Street maps, Road view, Aerial view, Bird’s-eye view, Streetside view etc.
