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...

Jason Follas has been posting some useful articles on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and it’s new support for spatial data. I wrote up about these articles here: http://mandown.co.nz/microsoft/… Jason has just posted a new write up as part of the series. In this, the 4th post in a series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) on the new spatial data types in SQL Server 2008, I’ll explain some of the methods that are used to transform a single Geometry instance into another useful Geometry instance.  Note that I’m using Geometry for simplicity, but these techniques also work with Geography. You...

More and more people are talking about Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and it’s new support for spatial data. How many people out there understand the in’s and out’s of how SQL Server 2008 works and what it is going to provide? I found a really useful three article write up for those that like to learn more about SQL Server 2008. Jason Follas, has a nice write up in which is goes deep investigating SQL Server 2008. In his first part of his write up: I provided a somewhat verbose description of the two different types of Spatial data supported by SQL Server 2008: Geometry (flat Earth model)...

Microsoft will be holding a 100 level webcast talking about how you can map your data with SQL Server 2008 and Virtual Earth. Many people have been wondering how to do this and now you can get an insight. You will also learn how to use the spatial data types within SQL Server 2008 to create these mapping features using Virtual Earth. Join us as we look at Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as a productive platform.  We use Container Overseas Shipping Operation (Contoso) as our scenario customer while we work our way through the features that make SQL Server 2008 this platform. Contoso is a shipping...