In the recent months there has been good improvements in Virtual Earth’s Birds eye view. One of the reasons this was possible was due to new camera used for these excellent high resolution images – Ultracamx. UltracamX is from a company (Vexcel) Microsoft acquired some time back. It supports very large image format available (216 megapixels: 14,430 pixels across track; 9,420 pixels along track) which means they do fewer flights to capture images. It has something like 13 CCD Arrays, each of them controlled by a dedicated CPU and instance of Windows CE Embedded and a 14th CPU for overall control.
To further clarify, our "Bird’s Eye" views are that which give you the 45 degree oblique perspective of building facades and entrances.
Sorry to have to correct you but the UltraCam is NOT the camera that provides the Bird’s Eye views in Virtual Earth.
The UltraCam provides the overhead (straight down) high resolution aeril views but not the Bird’s Eye which is provided by a third party source.
Thanks for highlighting the camera all the same! – Virtual Jerry