Blog Moved to Wordpress

I have decided to move my blog to DRMcG.Wordpress.com to give it a go and it seems to have easy integration of souce code samples into blog posts.

This was probably possible with Blogger but this changed seemed like a good choice.

Thank you for continuing to follow me and I hope to increase the number of posts I make.

Duncan

Extend MapPolygon to allow binding to Fill Parameter

The Silverlight Bing Maps Control library has a MapPolygon control to allow you to overlay geo-located polygons over your Bing Map.

The MapPolygon control has a property Fill that is used to set the fill Brush for the polygon, but there is no DependencyProperty for the Fill property and it cannot be set using a Binding statement in XAML.

One Solution for this is to extend the MapPolygon control to add a DependencyProperty for Fill.

Here is how you may implement this:

Public Class MapPolygonExtended

Inherits Microsoft.Maps.MapControl.MapPolygon



Public Shared ReadOnly FillProperty As DependencyProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Fill", GetType(Brush), GetType(MapPolygonExtended),

New PropertyMetadata(New PropertyChangedCallback(AddressOf FillChangedCallback)))



Public Overloads Property Fill() As Brush

Get

 Return MyBase.Fill

End Get

Set(ByVal value As Brush)

 MyBase.Fill = value

End Set

End Property



Private Shared Sub FillChangedCallback(ByVal d As DependencyObject, ByVal e As DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs)

Dim dlb As MapPolygonExtended = CType(d, MapPolygonExtended)

dlb.Fill = CType(e.NewValue, Brush)

End Sub



End Class

This then allows you to bind to the Fill property of your new extended control:

<local:MapPolygonExtended Fill=”{Binding Path=FillColour}” >

If the bound property is already of type Brush then it should just work as long as you have set the locations for the points of the polygon.

If it is another type such as a Color or String then you will need to use a binding converter.

I hope this can help people setup bound MapPolygon.

Happy Coding and Mapping

Autodesk Revit 2011 with .NET Framework 4.0

I discovered yesterday that Autodesk Revit 2011 does not play nicely with .NET Framework v4.0

 

If you have an external command built with .NET v4.0 that utilizes the RevitApi.dll it will not run from witin revit, as Revit only supports up to framework v3.5

 

For something that is named for next year (there release cycle is April = Date.Now().Year() + 1)

It is not great especially since their whole UI seems to be based on WPF.

 

I have found a solution with the help of Redbolts.com

http://redbolts.com/blog/post/2010/05/31/Compiling-and-running-NET40-Revit-commands.aspx

 

To get my External Command to run i have had to change the Revit.exe.config file to include

 

<startup uselegacyv2runtimeactivationpolicy="true">

<supportedruntime sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" version="v4.0">

<supportedruntime version="v2.0.50727">

</startup>

 

just before the closing tag

 

This allows any of our external commands .NET v4.0 and .NET v3.5 to run

 

I have not had any issues as of yet with this change, but i am dreading publishing the Command and having to change the Revit.exe.config on our users computers.

 

Common Autodesk this is not ideal.

 

I am also using the new RevitAddinUtility.dll to setup the addin

the project that includes this also has to have the above snippet in its app.config file.

 

iMap on Windows Phone 7 (with screenshots)

I have now been able to setup the iMap map control to run on the Windows Phone 7 emulator.

I have had to revert the code back to Silverlgiht 3 as I was getting errors due to the different versions of mscorlib between Silverlight 4 and Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.

At this point in time iMap is kind of slow on WP7 but I am able to show 3D buildings and change the pitch of the map.




The Bing/Local tile layers seem to stall in loading which is why the screenshots look a bit odd.



I assume this is because although the building models are not in the visual tree, they are still using memory.


Here is a side by side comparison of the Silverlight 4 Web aplication and the WP7 application



I have also been able to load the building floor plans on the WP7.


The floor plan is fully rotatable, pitch and angle, just like the web version as it is essentially the same code.


I think this is pretty cool, just need to make a few optimisations to impove perfomance but i seems that WP7 would be a viable platform for iMap handheld.

Now I just need to get my hands on some actual hardware and we will see how it runs.

Please if you have any thoughts or comments please leve them below.

New Performance Improvements

Welcome to another installment about the development of 3D onto Bing Maps Silverlight control (University of Otago - Interactive Campus Map, iMap)

Recently the performance of iMap has become rather slow, which an increase in displayed elements.

I have started to improve performance of loading/usability by removing objects (buildings) from the visual tree if they do not fit in the current viewable area, then adding them back in when they are within the viewable area.

One performance downside of this is that the adding and removing of a large number of UIElements form the visual tree such as when going from viewing the whole of the Dunedin campus to viewing the Invercargill campus is slow and the application freezes and the view does not transition to the new location it just jumps.
There may be some background way to remove these items without the performance loss, which is something I will look into.

Thank you for the positive comments we have received for the application and please if you have any please use the "iMap Feedback" button at the bottom left of the application to send us any feedback.

Duncan

Bing Maps with 3D Buildings: Some Detail

Hello to all whom are interested.

I was asked if I could expalin how I setup the binding of psudo 3D (3D transofrmed to 2D) buildings to the Bing Maps Silverlight control.

Here is a basic overview, I will do into more detail later.

On the map I have a Canvas bound to a LocationRect which is at the Longitude/Latitude bounds of each building.

To handle scaling I have setup handling of the LayoutUpdated event on the Canvas, passing in the Canvas as a paramater, using an EventHandler Delegate, since the LayoutUpdated event does not pass in a sender object.

In this handler I get the Transform from the canvas to the Map control so I can transform the position of the Canavs to the position on the screen, this is where I set the Canvas.Left and Canvas.Top onf the Model Canvas to the same screen position.
Then I also get the ActualWidth and ActualHeight of the Canvas on the Map control and use a ScaleTransform to scale up the Models Canvas.

Then Model Canvas is added to a Canvas that sits over the Map control (in the same clip region as the map so the models disapear is their base is not visible on the Map.

The model canvas contains the psudo 3D object to display on it.

In the next post I will provide more detail on how to convert 3D into 2D space, and also how to speed up transofrmation calcullations by only rendering updating visible objects.

Bing Maps Silverlight with 3D Buildings

I have been working on how to get 3D Buildings only the Bing Maps Silverlight control.

Many people believe this to be impossible (or at least not possible for many years)

I have now worked out how this can be achieved. Have a look at the image below.

This is from the University of Otago iMap Campus map http://www.propserv.otago.ac.nz/iMap/

To access this view leave the "Bing Maps View" radio button selected and ckick on "Dunedin" in the menu

There is also a pitch control up the top right

When you mouse over the centre you will get up and down arrows

Click these to adjust the pitch.

Please let me know what you think

Silverlight in General & Silverlight 4 Beta

I was both surprised and impressed to see Silverlight 4 Beta released at PDC09.

I have been highly impressed with the development speed and features of Silverlight.
As you will see from my other posts I have been developing with Silverlight since Silverlight 1 where we just have JavaScript as a client programming language.

We currently run all of our web facing applications with Silverlight 3.
As we are serving external users we are still maintaining a "static" (as in not evolving) ASP.NET version of some of our applications such as the Web Cameras so that users don't miss out because they don't want to, or, due to IT policies, they cannot install Silverlight.

I am impressed with users visiting from countries other than New Zealand, and major corporations, as they, in most cases, have Silverlight already installed and can enjoy the latest fully functional version of our web applications.

There are many people whom refuse to install Silverlight purely because it is a Microsoft product, we have to respect this decision, just like people still wanting to use IE 6 :-)

Looking at the capabilities of Silverlight 4 Beta I look forward to upgrading our applications to take advantage of the new capabilities.

Congrats Microsoft Silverlight Team

iMap going Live

The 3D campus map Silverlight website I have been working on is going live tomorrow with a story in the staff buletin.

The website has been named "iMap" meaning interactive map.

I have moved to writing my own 3D engine as it allowed access to all the objects I require and I can quickly and easily change the colour of models as compared to Kit 3D which can take a while to change.

If you have the appropriate access rights the building floor plans can be viewed in full 3D you can rotate it and view the building as a full stacked building.

If you would like to view the iMap then goto http://www.propserv.otago.ac.nz/web/iMap

Let me know what you think by using the iMap feedback link at the bottom left of the website.

Silverlight 3D using Kit3D

I have been continuing my work on our campus plans website (Silverlight application)

For the display of the campus I have decides to move from the pseudo 3D version to an actual 3D plan.
I have chosen Kit3D by Mark Dawson http://www.markdawson.org/Kit3D

Here is the current result:

I have keys setup to navigate the 3D model, e.g. left arrow to rotate left

One issue this I am facing with Kit3D is that when I move the camera in closer to the "ground" some triangles/faces appear in front of the camera so you cannot see the models that should be in front of you.

An advantage of having the campus in 3d is the future ability to send the camera through the campus, between the buildings, to perhaps show how to get from one building to another, or just to show a virtual tour of the campus.

There are plenty of possibilities which is very exciting, and I'm really enjoying the task.

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Experiences

I have been working on converting the website I mentioned with regard to Silverlight 1.0 over to Silverlight 2 Beta 2.

This task took some time as I had to convert Javacript to VB.net.

Another difficult element was getting webservies to work, and then get them to work once published and ensure that it is all still working.

I have also now got zooming on the center of the view working correctly, by scaling on the thumbnail and projecting the view to the main view.

I am using animations to make any movement smooth and see where you are moving from/to, such as you can click on the thumbnail and the view will move to be centered on the point you clicked, the main veiw and thumbnail move at the same relaitve rate, I think this looks quite cool.

After seeing Nigel Parker's Unplugged Mix recap in Dunedin a few weeks ago I became quite interested in where silverlight was going and made this move to upgrade the website.

One thing that i have found great with Silverlight 2 is the incusion of textboxes and buttons, this has meant that I nolonger need to overlay HTML controls. I had to create my own menu control wich was actually quite easy, just using nested canvas.

I have also been creating "Dialog boxes" borders with controls in them in the center of the Silverlight plugin with a background that covers everything but is not fully opaque which looks quite snazzy, this is similar to Scott Guthrie's Digg example of the item view.

Another cool animation part is the ability to search for a building or department and have the view center on the building or center of the buildings that the department are in then zoom in or out so the bounds fill the view as best as possible.

I am also setting up user management to control what particular users/computer can see if they are viewing as public ore are logged in.

Overall i am quite impressed with Silverlight 2 Beta 2, and look foward to the final release later this year which should coinside with the final relase of the website, we are looking at getting public access running in the next few weeks for receiving feedback on what people would like to see and do with the website.

ADSL Speed Test Result

Silverlight 1.0 experiences

I have been spending the last week working on converting a web application from an image based web application to a Silverlight 1.0 application.

The application is a campus map web app which you can zoom, pan, select regions, show/hide layers, and source information.

With the exiting application, to maintain high quality plans when the plan was zoomed, a region selected/deselected or layer shown/hidden a new image would be loaded. This can end up with quite a large amount of data transferred fro basic use of the application.

With the use of Silverlight 1.0 I am able to download the geometry of the plans once, then use JavaScript to highlight regions when selected, and show/hide layers, and zoom (using scale transform) without the need to download any more data. For a particular plan once it it downloaded the only transfer you need to do is any data you want to retrieve in relation the plan or region selected. This can be achieved with web services.

One issue I have been having is trying to zoom in on the center of the currently viewable area, then still being able to pan. You can easily zoom the center with the zoom transform, use the ScaleX and ScaleY set to the scale, and CenterX and CenterY set to the center of the view area. If anyone has any ideas on how to compete this effectively, I would like to hear from you.

Another feature which is lacking in Silverlight 1.0 is integrated textbox, the easiest way to add a textbox to your Silverlight 1.0 is to overlay HTML. This is achieved by floating a div over the Silverlight control and setting the Silverlight control to not window contained (as I recall from memory).

Overall Silverlight 1.0 has been an interesting platform to develop with. Woks great with both IE7 and Firefox 2 on Vista Ultimate, but Silverlight does not appear to work with Opera at this time, don't know if support will be added or not.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.