Changing the views and navigating the maps
You can also use the following simple controls for changing the dimensions of the views. If you wish to have the 2D views just press 2, similarly to change to the 3D mode press from the keyboard.
You can also change the view of the maps with the help of the following shortcuts from the keyboard.
Pressing the R key would turn on the road views. Pressing the A key would change the views to the aerial views. Pressing the H key from the keyboard would display the Hybrid views. Similarly, the B button would display the bird’s eye views.
Navigating the maps using the mouse and keyboard
Before navigating the maps provided by the Virtual Earth, you have to choose the type of the view that you want.
The 2D maps are somewhat simpler than the 3D maps and therefore the controls for them are simpler too. They are as mentioned under.
Panning the maps:For this, you have four options as mentioned under
a) In order to pan in a particular direction on the maps you can use the directional arrows that represent the four directions. They are displayed in the compass on the screen.
b)You can click on any point on the map directly and then dragging the mouse in the desired direction would drag the map along with it.
c)Or you can directly use the arrow keys from the keyboard.
d)Another useful method for browsing through the maps is that, you can click on mini map and then drag it. This also drags the larger main map also. This is useful because the mini map is at lesser resolution than the larger map and therefore this way you can drag faster.
Note:The mini map would not appear by default on the screen. You would have to make it active. For this, just click on the icon for activating this mini map. This mini map is after activation would appear at the upper right corner of the main map.
Rotating the map while viewing the bird’s eye view
This can be simply done by using the N, S, E and W keys from the keyboard. They represent the north, south, east and west directions, respectively.
Zooming out of the maps
For zooming out of the map, you have the following options.
a)From the view control, you can use the zooming out icon. It resembles a magnifying glass having a “-” sign in between it. One click would zoom out by one level. Therefore, you can zoom out gradually or you can also hold down this key until you zoom out to the desired level.
b)Then the second method for doing so is using the minus button from the keyboard. This also works similar to the above-mentioned button.
c)However, the most convenient method for doing so is using the mouse. You can just roll the roller of the mouse and zoom out of the maps.
d)Holding down the ALT key and then double clicking too, would zoom you out of the maps. In addition to this, this method also centers the map at the point where you double click.
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