Microsoft VirtualEarth Birdseye Downloader

Microsoft VirtualEarth Birdseye Downloader is a great method of creating local archives of multiple satellite pictures. Users who often employ Bing Maps to find locations or just to get aerial sights will find this software very valuable. Besides creating archives, one can use it to create offline educational multimedia libraries for children.

Users should note that the software does not work with other satellite maps providers. Also, an obvious requirement for this program is a working Internet connection; a Microsoft account is not, however, required. A good amount of free disk space is also necessary since the program batch downloads hundreds of small images.

Once these preliminaries are overcome, users will find the tool is very easy to understand. The essentially one-window app requires only several fields to be completed for data to be transferred. Defining the longitude and the latitude is mandatory, as this data controls what the software actually downloads to disk.

Microsoft VirtualEarth Birdseye Downloader allows users to tweak several options, including the direction (all four coordinates are supported) and the zoom level. Adjusting this allows one to obtain very accurate satellite pictures.

After maps have been downloaded, users can combine them into a single BMP. This is performed with the "Map Combiner" tool, accessible from the “Tools” menu. Another useful resource is the "Map viewer", which allows one to preview downloaded content.

To sum up, Microsoft VirtualEarth Birdseye Downloader is a useful tool for generating offline libraries of Bing Maps satellite pictures.