Looking for a simple Silverlight map component

Question

I am looking for a light-weight map component that displays a map of the US and allows users to click on a State and see information pertaining to that state. The data I wan

Answer 1

If you have access to Expression Studio (specifically Expression Design), creating maps as vector based images is quite easy. Poly-paths in Xaml are also relatively efficient to store and serve up compared to images.

You import a map as a background image and use the pen tool to dot-to-dot trace around the country. Combine all those path segments into a single path. Then create a separate poly-path for each state (close them to allow for a fill).

It will take a few hours to build all this (I know having done this for a world map country selector... took 4-5 hours solid for the one polygon styled below):

By having each state represented by a filled polygon-path highlighting (by changing the fill colour) is trivial on mouse-enter/mouse-leave events.

If you want stylistic map, remove the image, otherwise use transparency on the state polygons to show the map through the roll-overs.

Update:

And if you get yourself a graphic tablet and pen this sort of point-to-point work is about 5 times faster than with a mouse!

Answer 2

The interaction with Bing Maps in Silverlight is really strong and provide you with easy communication between the map and your data. I would give Bing Maps a try.

Answer 3

I'm not sure if you've already come across this, but it seems you can also use the control with custom tile sources. Here are a few resources.

http://www.cadmaps.com/gisblog/?p=54

http://developers.de/blogs/damir_dobric/archive/2009/11/16/implementing-custom-map-in-silverlight-map-control.aspx

http://labs.mandogroup.com/skinning-the-silverlight-bing-maps-control/

Custom Rendering in Bing Silverlight Control