MapPoint Web Service + WPF

The MapPoint Web Service SDK puts tremendous power in the hands of developers.  The Windows Presentation Foundation puts tremendous power in the hands of developers.

How might they be put together? I think I have an approach that I'd like to share which could help in many cases. It works like this:

 

1. Use the MapPoint Web Service SDK to generate a map

2. Download the map and assign it as the source of a WPF Image

3. Place a transparent (or semi-transparent) Canvas over the Image

4. Use client side transformations to add objects to the Canvas in the appropriate location

 

You'll need to geocode the latitude and longitude of every object you add to the Canvas (the MapPoint Web Service SDK has methods to do this), and you'll have get the client side transformations right to make this work (the MapPoint Web Service SDK has samples that show how to do this), but if you do, you'll have the complete power of WPF at your disposal.

In other words, the objects you plot on the map can be stylized and programmed however you like.

Not bad, eh? I'll post some code snippets once I get a little further along with this...