At the SQL 2008 unleashed event I demoed some code that incorporated VE with SQL 2008 to find those people attending SQLBits that where near your route to the conference.I've been asked to provide the code for that, unfortunately the code is to entangled with the SQLbits site and s

At the SQL 2008 unleashed event I demoed some code that incorporated VE with SQL 2008 to find those people attending SQLBits that where near your route to the conference.

I've been asked to provide the code for that, unfortunately the code is to entangled with the SQLbits site and so I've decided to break it into small chunks that you can then put together.

The first of these is some code that converts VERoutes into a sql geography type. This is needed if you want to to any spatial searching based on routes.

Its really neat that VE provides routing, one downside is that the standard VE service only provides waypoints and not the precise route. For that reason if you travel from London to Leeds along the M1 you will only get the entry and exit junctions of the M1. If you join you points together it will look as though you travelled across country and not along the M1. The commercial and developer licensed versions supposedly give the full route. However I haven't been able to get this working.

Anyway, To get a route you need to call the GetDirections method.

In this example I have two layers each with a point on that marks the venue (destination) and the starting location. Note : Use of layers is very useful to control displaying and loading points. However you have to set the "SendLayersToServer" property of the map control to true.

        RouteOptions ro = new RouteOptions ();

        ro.DistanceUnit = RouteDistanceUnit.Mile ;

        ro.DrawRoute = true;

        ro.SetBestMapView = true;

        ro.RouteOptimize = RouteOptimize.MinimizeTime ;

       

        //Get the location of the venue (the destination)

        var Venue = Map1.GetShapeLayerByIndex(LAYER_BASE).Shapes[0];

 

        //Only proceed if the user has said where to start from

        if (Map1.GetShapeLayerByIndex(LAYER_LOCATION).GetShapeCount() > 0)

        {

            //Get the location of the start point

            Shape House = Map1.GetShapeLayerByIndex(LAYER_LOCATION).Shapes[0];

 

            //Ask the control to get the directions.

            //This is an async call, the result is returned in the callback method

            Map1.GetDirections(new List<LatLongWithAltitude>() { Venue.Points[0], House.Points[0] }, ro);

        }

I got this far and was then stumped as to how I got hold of the route that was planned, I thought it was a special layer. After digging through the client side script and loking at the eventhandlers defined for the control I realised the route is past pack using the ServerGetDirections postback event. Whats odd is that it takes a MapRouteEventhandler, it seems the changed from Route to Directions but not everywhere.

Once you've defined your evenhandler you need to do something with the route that is passed back. In this example code I'm building a SqlGeography instance using the new SqlGeographyBuilder api. Its a very easy interface to use even if there are a few gotchas. The main gotcha is the first point has to be defined with the BeginFigure method (from what I could work out), after that you can call AddLine.

The key hear is looping through the different collections that comprise the Route object. The final step is to do something with the instance you've built. In this case I stored the shape as text in a field on the page. I'm sure this isn't great as this could get quite large. I haven't found a way of getting at the Route after this event has fired so you have to do whatever you want with the route in this event, otherwise your stuck.

void Map1_ServerGetDirections(object sender, Microsoft.Live.ServerControls.VE.Route e)

    {

        MapID.Text = "Route found";

        //create a SQLGeography from the route generated

        SqlGeography G = new SqlGeography();

 

        SqlGeographyBuilder gb = new SqlGeographyBuilder();

        gb.SetSrid(4326);

 

        gb.BeginGeography(OpenGisGeographyType.LineString);

       

        bool first = true;

        foreach (var r in e.RouteLegs)

        {

           

            foreach (var i in r.Itinerary.Items)

            {

                //In the commercial interface you get the full shape of the route

                //otherwise you just get the co-ordinates of the ends of each leg (i.e. junctions)

                if (i.Shape != null)

                {

                    //Look through points in the shape

                    foreach (var p in i.Shape.Points)

                    {

                        if (first)

                        {

                            //First points so start the Geography figure

                            gb.BeginFigure(p.Latitude, p.Longitude);

                            first = false;

                        }

                        else

                        {

                            //Add a line from the last point to this point

                            gb.AddLine(p.Latitude, p.Longitude);

                        }

                    }

                }

                #region OnlyPointsNoShapes

                else

                {

                    if (first)

                    {

                        gb.BeginFigure(i.LatLong.Latitude, i.LatLong.Longitude);

                        first = false;

                    }

                    else

                        gb.AddLine(i.LatLong.Latitude, i.LatLong.Longitude);

                }

                #endregion

            }

        }

        gb.EndFigure();

        gb.EndGeography();

        RouteText.Value = gb.ConstructedGeography.STAsText().ToSqlString().Value;

I hope that is useful, its using the VE server control rather than the javascript version.

I will post more in the future

If you want a developer license then you can signup here

https://mappoint-css.live.com/MwsSignUp/Default.aspx

Once signed up you need to enable the app to get a token and use that token in requests. Details on how to get the token per session are here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb924353.aspx

 

Johannes has a great example here:

http://johanneskebeck.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!42E1F70205EC8A96!4504.entry

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