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 want to display is in my database. I just need to know what state was selected so I can display the detail. This is something I am doing to get familiar with Silverlight.

All the searches for Silverlight/ Maps I have done so far have pointed me at solutions that are far more complicated than I need. My perception is that using Bing Maps to do this simple task would a waste of the features provide by Bing.

Anyone know of such a Component? Am I wrong that Bing Maps is not the right tool for the job?

TIA!

Update: In case anyone wants a similar setup and does not care to spend a lot of time creating paths - Here is the map I made: http://ratherbecoding.net/Silverlight/SimpleMapp

If you want the XAML/code behind & images take em: http://ratherbecoding.net/Silverlight/SimpleMapp/MapFiles.zip disclaimer: I take no responsibility for my poor Silverlight/Geographical knowledge and spelling skills.

Answer 1

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 2

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).

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.

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/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1092595/custom-rendering-in-bing-silverlight-control