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A Toronto-based Microsoft partner has developed a touch screen mapping application for Windows 7 that can be used for selling a condo, coordinating a police incident command centre, and potentially much more.

Dubbed Falcon Eye, Infusion Development has created an enhanced version of Microsoft Virtual Earth that can interpret geospatial data and plot it on a map in real time. The software can also represent 3D models of buildings and give to-scale representations of the inside and outside of an existing or future structure.

The firm is hoping a wide range of businesses will be interested in finding applications for the software, says Simon Matthews, a solutions architect at Infusion Development.

“We built Falcon Eye so as to consume different data, such as XML, Web services or even local data,” he says. “So long as there's geospatial coordinates, we can map that data to a particular region.”

Traffic flow is shown on the map, and live feeds from cameras can be viewed.

The program uses multi-touchpoint gestures to navigate the globe, zooming in on a location by moving two fingers outwards from each other, or displaying object information after a finger tap – and was previously limited to the Microsoft Surface hardware. Now, Windows 7 supports multi-touch capabilities and Infusion has prepared Falcon Eye for its debut on desktop computers.

Multi-touch was included as a feature in Microsoft's new operating system to make it easier to use, says Robert Geller, product manager Windows client at Microsoft Canada Co.

“Multi-touch is one of the more exciting areas where developers are taking advantage of Windows 7,” he says. “It really makes PC computing a visual and tactile experience, something natural instead of using a mouse and keyboard.”

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