A screenshot from Microsoft's Live Search Maps showing downtown Portland in 3D.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland has become the latest city to be featured in Microsoft's new three-dimensional search technology through Live Search Maps.

"Portland is definitely a 'techie' city and it's one that we had on our radar as one that we wanted to get the 3D animation out quickly (on)," Kevin Hagwell, Product Manager for Live Search Maps, told KATU News.  "We are very pleased that we have been able to get Portland out early in the process."

Live Search Maps 3D imagery is currently available in dozens of other U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Seattle.

Live Search Maps 3D is a browser-based program that is free and ad-supported.  Some of the features will require a login.  "There are a few things that we need to be able to tie to a user account to be able to maintain the personalization benefit of the software," Hagwell said.

You can also access Live Search Maps on your cell phone or PDA. 

"You can get this through both a browser experience and we have a separate piece of client software that you can install," said Hagwell.  "We're quite proud of our mobile innovations and we consistently hear from consumers that we've really nailed the mobile experience."

For information on the mobile product, click here.

The first major thought that comes to mind when taking a look at Microsoft's Live Search Maps 3D is how it compares to Google Earth.  According to Hagwell, it's all about the experience.

"There are a few core differences.  The first is that our 3D is a browser-based experience and I think that's a critical difference to call out, where Google Earth is a stand-alone program that you need to download," he said.  "When you look at Google Earth, diving a little bit deeper, their 3D provides gray-scale boxes of buildings where if you take a look at the Live Search Maps 3D, you have an immersive, texturing mapping experience, like photo-realistic textured buildings, that we have created on our product team.  They are precise and engineering-scale.  Google has to either rely upon external developers or external consumers to create their models, so there is a difference in the precision of the end result.  The key thing to call out is the disparate experience.  We've maintained everything as a browser-based experience without having to go outside."

In addition to the 3D experience, Live Search Maps has real-time traffic information for commuters, driving directions, business listings and reviews - all local for Portland or whatever city you choose to visit online.

"Live Search Maps really is the ultimate online local resource," Hagwell added.  "It delivers maps, directions, local listings all in one place and it helps people easily find what's important to them, as well as explore their environment - whether it's a city that they live in like Portland, or it could be a city that they're visiting and they have never been to before."