The MapPoint Web Service is a programmable web service hosted by Microsoft and used by enterprises and independent software developers to integrate location-based services such as maps, driving directions and proximity searches into software applications and business processes. By using the MapPoint Web Service, companies can improve business results through better discoverability of store locations and business assets trough powerful server-based mapping, including street-level address lookups, point-to-point directions, and other features that you’ve become accustomed to on many mapping or retail portals.
The MapPoint Web Service includes several features like
- Finding Addressable and Non-addressable places (rivers, landmarks etc.) in North America, South America and Europe.
- Reverse Geocoding by listing geographic entities that are associated with a particular coordinate.
- Finding Nearby Places: Points of interest (POI) based on the proximity to a selected location (also along a specified route). Customers can upload custom POI datasets as well.
- Customizing Locations: geocode and storing of custom databases to be used with MapPoint Web Service applications. Customers can include up to 300 searchable attributes for each record such as types of services and hours of operation.
- Routing by optimized driving directions with step-by-step instructions. Worldwide City-to-City Routing is possible as well.
- Polygons: you can define and render a region on a map and then use this region to find relations to other polygons, point data sources, addresses, and specific geographic locations for defining neighborhoods, delivery areas, cell phone coverage and territories. The MapPoint Web Service offers a polygon creation tool and several command line tools for converting existing ESRI, MapInfo, Autodesk, Intergraph and GML files to the MWS polygon file format. It also offers a COM Add-in for MapPoint 2006 North America and MapPoint 2004 Europe which allows you to draw your own polygons and save them to the MapPoint Web Service polygon XML file format.
- Real-Time Traffic Incidents (accidents, congestion, or construction) for over 70 major metropolitan areas in the United States. Data about the traffic incident include the severity, traffic flow diversion, the expected duration and the expected delay.
- Map Rendering in many different styles and font sizes, optimized for a wide variety of devices and applications, including Line Drive, Night Time and Urban Inset Maps.
Before using the MapPoint Web Service SDK, you need to sign up for a MapPoint Web Service Developer Account and start building location-enabled solutions. With a Developer Account, you get full access to the rich set of MapPoint Web Service APIs that allow you to integrate maps, driving directions and proximity searches into a wide range of solutions. A free Developer Account also gives you access to the MapPoint Web Service staging environment , which you can use to build applications for trial, demonstration, and proof-of-concept purposes.
The MapPoint Web Service SDK v 4.1 includes detailed documentation and describes the basic services, requirements, development guidelines, object model and comprehensive reference information for the MapPoint Web Service. It also includes sample code demonstrating common uses of MapPoint. You can also browse the MapPoint Web Service SDK on MSDN.
MapPoint Web Service Object Model
MapPoint Web Service is an XML Web service with a SOAP API. You can use MapPoint Web Service to add location-based functionality to your applications, including high-quality maps, location finding, and routing capabilities. MapPoint Web Service consists of four constituent services: common, find, render, and route. A second XML Web Service, called “Customer Data Service”, allows you to upload, download, and manage custom data sources, including points-of-interest and polygon data. You can find the reference documentation for the MapPoint Web Service and Customer Data Service class libraries here.
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