Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Gets A Map Viewer!

Well well, I had a feeling this was coming and I see its now going to be made available in the final release. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is getting a map viewer!

Many people have been asking how they can visualize their results from spatial queries they might run in SQL Server 2008. For example:

SELECT ID, SHAPEGEOG FROM ZIPCODES WHERE ID LIKE ’981%’

What is the result of this?

We get back the ID’s and the SHAPEGEOG as a binary. Not very useful, so we can ask the server to give it back to us in WKT. What is the result of this?

This makes more sense and is readable but still not useful. If you want to visualize this you would have to write your own visual tool or maybe even use ArcMap? Now Microsoft has included a new tab in the results panel of queries called Spatial Results.

Clicking on this will change the view to a map control which will take the results from your query and map them!

Like Isaac from the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Spatial development team says:

These maps are interactive: you can zoom; you can pan; you can even label the results.  It isn’t aimed at reporting, and this isn’t a reusable component that can be used in other applications, but it can be invaluable in giving you a feel for what your results look like.  It goes far beyond eye candy: it actually allows you to understand your data.

This is an awesome new feature. It will save a ton of time when running queries against spatial data stored in SQL Server 2008. Personally I think this is a big feature that Oracle Spatial is lacking. Well done to the guys on the SQL Server 2008 development team for making this new feature possible.

Now I am sure you are wanting to run out and download the latest CTP to try this out. Unfortunately we are going to have wait to see this new feature in action.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a tease at the moment: the code just went in, which means none of this will be available in our upcoming RC0.  It will be in RTM, however, so you shouldn’t have to wait too long.

RTM is not too far away now! Really looking forward to seeing this in action and thanks to Isaac for posting this information. His write up can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/isaac/…