Google Maps Launches Immersive View, Combining Street View and Aerial Photography into 3D

Inno Flores, Tech Times 08 February 2023, 11:02 pm

Google Maps' Immersive View is now officially launched. The newest feature comes a bit late as it was promised to release in late 2022. Despite this, Immersive View debuted in five cities across three continents, including London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo.

(Photo : OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
This illustration picture shows Google map application displaying medical facility or a COVID-19 testing center on a smartphone in Arlington, Virginia on June 9, 2020.

Google Maps' Immersive View

At a Google event in Paris, France, the company announced the launch of Immersive View as Google Maps' newest feature. According to a report from CNET, this feature allows users to soar through 3D renderings of cities at different times of the day and weather conditions.

This will come with improved language and search tools, powered by Google's heavy investment in AI. Through advanced computer vision, the tech giant fused aerial photography and street and Google Street View to transform them into detailed 3D representations. This marks them as one of the most competitive platforms in the market, as Apple and other mapping services stepped up their game.

Immersive View is currently available in five cities for now, such as London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo. But the company is planning to launch this feature in more cities in the coming months, including Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice.

The company wrote, "To create these true-to-life scenes, we use neural radiance fields (NeRF), an advanced AI technique, transforms ordinary pictures into 3D representations." NeRF will help Google Maps to accurately recreate the full context of a place like lighting and textures of materials.

Engadget reported that Immersive View is an effort of Google to help users plan a trip, as it adds contextual information that will prepare them right away for traffic, weather, and how busy a location is at different times of the day.

Also Read: Google Maps on Wear OS Now Supports Phone-Less Navigation - Still No Offline Option?

Other Updates

Aside from Immersive View, TechCrunch reported that Google laid out several updates for Maps. Glanceable Directions is rolling out globally on Android and iOS for the next few months. This will let users track their journey right from their route overview and lock screen.

This was only previously visible by unlocking their phones, opening the app, and using the comprehensive navigation mode. This new update will give users a much more convenient travel agenda in the future, as Glacebale Directions can be used during walking, biking, or taking public transit without any hassle.

Search with Live will also come to more places in Europe in the future, specifically Barcelona, Madrid, and Dublin. This feature will let users find essential places through the use of their phone cameras. Shops, ATMs, and restaurants can now be found easily by only lifting up your cameras.

Meanwhile, the Indoor Live View feature expanded to over 1,000 new airports, train stations, and malls. Selected cities all over the world can now access this feature very soon, including London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Singapore, and Taipei.