Introducing Geoquery 2008 0.73 beta

A geospatial data visualizer for SQL Server 2008

If you are using the Geography or Geometry datatypes in SQL Server 2008, you probably already know that Microsoft has introduced a 'Spatial results' tab in Management Studio to help visualize the results of a query involving Geography or Geometry types.

Geoquery2008 is an alternative visualization tool - its primary advantage over the 'Spatial results' tab is that it allows you to view query results overlaid on map tile data from a user-configurable set of image sources including NASA's Blue Marble image collection. Users with permission from Microsoft or Google (via relevant licensing agreements) could also access Live Maps or Google Earth imagery.

Beta version 0.73 is functionally the same as 0.72 released back in March, but compiled against Microsoft.NET 3.5 SP1 and the RTM version of SQL Server 2008. Further improvements to Geoquery are underway...

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Geoquery 2008?

Geoquery is a Microsoft.NET 3.5 SP1 Windows Presentation Foundation application that started life as a hobby project to complement SilverlightEarth.com.

How it Geoquery 2008 different from the Spatial Tab in Management Studio?

The Spatial Tab has some very nice visualization features for geometry and geography query results. However it does not have any 'instrinsic' knowledge of maps - if you want to plot your customer database then you will also need to supply city/state/country borders as part of your query. Geoquery 2008 uses map tiles from familiar sources (like Open Street Map and NASA Blue Marble). The map overlay feature is extensible too - more map tile sources can be added easily via the MapSources.xml file, so if you have a licence for Google Maps or Virtual Earth you can easily incorporate them into your query results.