Let's learn how to navigate while viewing the Cypress Lakes From Above "Virtual Earth" images.
When this page first loads, you should see a birdseye view of the Clubhouse below and to the left. Note that the image you see is not merely a static photograph of the Clubhouse, but is an active window to the Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping engine that happens to be currently centered on the Clubhouse, and you will be able to easily navigate to other locations and to utilize different view modes within this Virtual Earth window simply by employing your mouse and the map control at the upper left corner of the window. Let's try some experiments:
1. Note that the "Birdseye" setting at the top of the map control is highlighted. Click on the "Space" setting and you will find that you will then be looking at a satellite view of most of the Cypress Lakes community - it is still centered on the Clubhouse, but it is zoomed out a bit.
2. Click on the "plus" magnifying glass symbol on the left side of the map control a few times, and you should find that you can zoom back in to where the Clubhouse appears quite large once again.
3. Now click on the "minus" magnifying glass symbol a number of times, and notice that you can zoom back out to where you can see the greater Lakeland area, then Florida, then the Southeastern US, then North America, etc.
4. If you have a middle mouse button, you may find that you are also able to zoom in and out quite readily by dragging on the image "forward" and "backward", or "upward" and "downward", with the middle mouse button.
5. Now zoom back in to where you can see the Clubhouse, the tennis courts, and just a couple of other nearby streets.
6. Click on the "Street" setting to see the same area, and notice that you do this if you want to see only a map with streets and street names.
7. Now click on the "Space" setting and you will find that you will once again be looking at a satellite view, but then also click on the "Labels" setting, and notice that the same view is shown, but that the street name labels are now visible. [As you can probably now see, such a "hybrid" view, combining the features of the Street ("map") mode with the Space (satellite) mode, may be the most helpful for navigating from place to place in the Virtual Earth window.] [The "Labels" setting also can be used in the Birdseye mode, too.]
8. Now, try dragging the map image around by using your left mouse button. You should find that you can navigate from place to place quite readily. (In fact, it is possible to navigate to almost any place on earth by zooming out sufficiently, then dragging the map around to center it on a new location, and then zooming back in.) For a little practice, try navigating from the clubhouse to your home.
9. Actually, you can also navigate around by double-clicking with your mouse on a spot toward the edge of the view window in the direction you want to go - that spot will be moved to the center of the view window, and you can repeat the motion as often as you wish, but there will also be one side effect - unless you are already zoomed in to the maximum "magnification" or "zoom level", you will find that double-clicking will cause you to zoom in as well, and this may or may not be helpful for what you are trying to do at the time.
10. Once again, go back to a birdseye view of the Clubhouse. (You may do this simply by clicking on the "Refresh / Restore" button provided below this Virtual Earth window.) Now let's try rotating the Clubhouse around. Click a few times on one, and then a few times on the other, of the two circular arrow symbols at the lower left side of the map control. You should find that you can obtain up to four different images of a birdseye object, going clockwise or counterclockwise, facing in each of the four main compass directions. You can also view the four directions by clicking on the "E", "S", "W" and "N" compass symbols at the upper left corner of the map control. (You can rotate an object only in birdseye mode, however - i.e., you cannot do so in the other view modes, and the circular arrow symbols and the compass direction symbols appear only in birdseye mode.)
11. OK - once again, let's start with a birdseye view of the Clubhouse (if you're not there already), and let's try navigating while in birdseye mode (which, as you'll see, is just a little trickier than navigating in the other modes). Try "driving" (by dragging with your mouse), starting at the Clubhouse, out along Big Cypress Boulevard, and east to the Main Entrance Gate House. (You'll find that it's a bit like learning to drive all over again - <g>.) You will notice that, on occasion, you will seem to "drive off the edge" of each birdseye image "tile" (the birdseye mode images are not as "seamless" as the other view modes appear to be). This might be a bit disconcerting at first, but, if you wait a second or two, the next adjacent birdseye image "tile" should appear, and you can then continue along your path. (Sometimes you might have to "encourage" this "re-tiling" process up by clicking with your mouse out in the black "empty" area to "coax" the next "tile" to load.) For a little more practice, try "driving" back from the Gate House to your home.
12. It's also possible to navigate "left" and "right", and "up" ("forwards") and "down" ("backwards"), by using the four compass pointers (the four arrow symbols) inside the compass circle near the upper left corner of the map control. In fact, if you click between any two of the four arrows, you can navigate using two directions (e.g., "up" and "left") at the same time. (To me, it seems that navigating by dragging with a mouse is more like driving while using a steering wheel, while navigating by using the compass pointers is more like driving around while using a joystck - however, "your mileage may vary" - <g>.) For a little practice, try "driving" around Cypress Lakes using just the compass pointers.
13. There is one additional symbol on the map control that is maybe worth knowing about - if you click on the "<<" symbol near the right end of it, you can collapse most of the map control into the corner, making it less obtrusive when you are not using it. This would probably be the most useful if you were trying to do a "screen capture" of a particular Virtual Map image, to make the "capture rectangle" as large as possible.
14. So, now that you have learned how to navigate and control the Virtual Earth images on this web site, you are ready for some exploring - Enjoy!
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