Virtual Earth™ Academic Research Collaboration

This RFP has been awarded. To view the award recipients, see Virtual Academic Research Collaboration 2007 Awards.

Background
Virtual Earth, available at http://local.live.com, provides an online mapping service that enables users to search, discover, explore, plan, and share information about specific locations. Moreover, by its use of traditional road maps, labeled aerial photo views, low-angle high-resolution aerial photos, and proximity searching capabilities, Virtual Earth provides unique opportunities for developers to incorporate both location and local search features into their Web applications, now including 3D maps.

Virtual Earth is encouraging academic research in areas relevant to digital geography, 3D graphics, computer vision (particularly as relevant to terrain and cityscapes), visualization, and tagging, including such topics as:

• Spatio-temporal data structures and algorithms
• Map-related algorithms
• Search-related algorithms with a geographic component
• Real-time traffic analysis and route-finding
• Ontologies, tags, including content rating, reviewing, and event organizing
• User interfaces

We believe research in the above topics can be highly enriched by the availability of imagery assets. Data gathering is still an expensive proposition today, and this RFP directly addresses the need for more data. By making data assets available to academia, Microsoft seeks to encourage innovation around information visualization, location-based searching, discovery, and sharing. It is hoped that increasing the availability of relevant, large data sets from Virtual Earth will enrich the development of exploratory analysis and algorithms which aim to directly or indirectly enhance the user experience for local Internet search.

Goals & Objectives
To advance academic research and publication in the area of Internet technologies and services, particularly in computer vision, location-based search, and information discovery and sharing, Microsoft intends to make available to the RFP awardees street imagery data from from one residential area, and the downtown area of San Francisco including:

1. Color orthometric imagery that covers the area.
2. Street-side images with estimated position and orientation accumulated in 4m intervals.
3. Models of the houses in the area, with some textured buildings.

In addition, Microsoft has already made available a Virtual Earth Interactive SDK (available at http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/) that enables programmatic access to VE map controls to develop services.

Microsoft encourages proposals which describe innovative research using the data assets and SDK above in bold, novel, and unconventional approaches to explore local search and related technologies, including interdisciplinary research. Researchers are encouraged to “think outside the box” in their proposals.

Awards
The total amount available under this request for proposals (RFP) is $US 400,000. Microsoft anticipates making approximately 8-14 awards in the range of $20K-$60K. All awards will be made in $US as unrestricted gifts to the institution. For all awards, payment of indirect costs (“overhead”) is not permitted.

Because local costs vary widely across geographies, Microsoft will take into account the reasonableness of the amount requested in any proposal in light of local costs, and reserves the right to fund proposals at an amount lower than requested if appropriate.

Awards under this program are for one year only, but may be renewable at the sole discretion of Microsoft.

Eligibility
Conditions of eligibility are listed below. Proposals not meeting all these criteria will not be considered.

1. The proposing institution must be an accredited baccalaureate or graduate degree-granting college or university (or international equivalent) with non-profit status. All qualifying institutions are eligible without regard for geographic location.
2. Proposals that are incomplete, inaccurate, request funds in excess of the maximum award available, or are otherwise not responsive to the terms and conditions of this RFP will, at the sole discretion of Microsoft, be excluded from consideration.
3. Proposals should evidence a commitment to make all results arising from a funded project (including all intellectual property in those results) broadly available by either: (i) dedicating such results to the public domain; or (ii) making the results (e.g. software systems and tools) available under a non-restrictive license that allows modification and redistribution without any significant restrictions or conditions, such as restrictions that require the publication of source code by licensees, so-called “reach through” provisions. An example of an acceptable license is the BSD license available at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.html. Proposals should further evidence willingness to contribute any resulting curriculum material to the MSDN Academic Alliance Repository at http://www.msdnaacr.net/curriculum/facetmain.aspx. A courtesy acknowledgement to the support supplied by Microsoft Research would be appreciated in any publications arising from the research.
4. Principal Investigators interested in accessing the Virtual Earth asset of ground images will need to sign a Licensing Agreement. Terms of the license will allow for publication of results but may restrict publication of detailed excerpts of the data.

Submission Process
Proposals will be accepted in electronic form only at http://microsoft.redwhale.com . Proposals submitted to Microsoft will not be returned. Microsoft cannot assume responsibility for the confidentiality of information in submitted proposals. Therefore, proposals should not contain information that is confidential, restricted or sensitive. Microsoft reserves the right to make public proposals that receive awards, except those portions containing budgetary information.

The submission process includes two parts.

1. Brief summary and contact information. Online applicants will be asked to provide full contact information for principal investigators, amount requested and a brief abstract.
2. Project proposal. 2 page maximum, 10pt. font or larger, single-spaced, in either Microsoft Word or PDF format. The proposal may contain links to websites with more information.

Proposals should contain information along the following lines:

1. Problem Statement: What is the problem addressed by the proposal and why is it important? What is the potential contribution to the field? Cite relevant work in the field as appropriate.
2. Outcomes and Dissemination: What tangible assets, if any, will be created or produced as a result of the proposed project? How will the results of this project be evaluated (if appropriate) and how will they be disseminated to others?
3. Qualifications of Principal Investigator: Include a brief description of any relevant prior research, teaching, publication or other professional experience. A detailed vita or list of publications is not required.
4. Schedule: When is the project to be completed? (If the project described is part of a larger ongoing research program, estimate the time for completion of this project only).
5. Use of Funds and Other Support: Provide a high-level budget ($US) describing how the award will be used, including purchases of hardware or software, salaries, and other costs. Please note that, because awards are made as unrestricted gifts, Microsoft policy prohibits the payment of indirect cost (“overhead”). Include other contributions to this project (cash, goods or services), if any, but do not include such things as use of university facilities otherwise provided on an ongoing basis. Please note: authors of winning proposals will be required to submit an original letter on department letterhead certifying the commitment of any additional or matching support described in the proposal.

Selection Process and Criteria
All eligible proposals will be reviewed by a Microsoft panel of subject-matter experts chosen by the Microsoft Virtual Earth team and Microsoft Research. Microsoft reserves the right to fund winning proposals at amounts it determines within the advertised range. Due to the volume of submissions, Microsoft cannot provide individual feedback on proposals that are not funded.

Authors (including co-investigators) of winning proposals will be required to grant Microsoft permission for the use of their name, image, institutional affiliation and related professional information in press releases or other forums for publication of their award.

All proposals will be evaluated based upon the following criteria:

1. Novelty and ambition, with well-defined research goals and objectives
2. Potential for wide dissemination, including plans for publications, conference presentation or exchange of results with the research community
3. Feasibility of the project including the adequacy of resources available
4. Qualifications of the principal investigator, including successful completion of previous funded projects, teaching awards, etc.
5. Proposed use of the resources made available (ground images, VE SDKs) in this proposal, and of Microsoft technologies to the extent applicable

Schedule and Deadlines

Additional Resources

Interactive Virtual Earth SDK
The interactive Virtual Earth SDK, found at http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/, gives you a new way of learning how to use the Microsoft Virtual Earth map control APIs. Rather than hunting for the correct object and method names, you can find the code you need by choosing the tasks you want to accomplish. The Interactive SDK shows you how the map control works and provides the complete code you need to implement the task on your own page.

MapPoint Web Service
The MapPoint Web Service, found at http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/default.mspx, is a programmable web service which can be used by software developers to integrate location-based services such as maps, driving directions, and proximity searches into software applications and business processes, providing better discoverability of store locations and business assets.

Please address any questions to veinq@microsoft.com

Microsoft Word version of this document