Immersive View Coming Soon to Maps
The immersive view is now coming soon to Maps! Google Maps is a web mapping and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, 360˚ panoramic views of streets, street maps, traffic conditions in real-time, and route planning for transportation by foot, car, bike, air, and public transportation. As a digital marketing company based in Kerala, here’s all you need to know about Maps’ Immersive View.
About Immersive View
Google Maps was first launched to help people navigate their destinations. Since then, it has evolved to become a perfect companion in helping people find an ideal restaurant or find information on a local business. Thanks to advancements in computer vision and AI, billions of street and aerial views can be fused together to create a rich, digital model of the world. This way, Google is now introducing a new way to explore maps.
With an immersive view, the user will be able to experience what a popular venue, landmark, restaurant, or neighborhood is like. They’ll be able to feel like they’re right there without actually being there. This helps people in making informed decisions before going someplace new.
With the help of Google Maps’ information layered on top, you can use the time slider to see what the area looks like at different points times of the day and in different weather conditions, and see where the busy spots are. Swoop down to a street level to explore nearby restaurants and get helpful information, like live busyness and nearby traffic. You can even get an inside view to get a feel for the vibe of the place before you book your reservation. All of this is possible using neural rendering to create an experience from images alone.
Instead of a flat 2D version, the immersive view transforms the world into a video game in the palm of your hand. The big change is that nothing is static anymore, the areas look like a Livestream. This seems more immersive in a way. The best part of the immersive view is that it will be able to work on any device. This feature has extremely great potential and could be the future of map platforms.
The feature will be first made available to Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo later this year. It will eventually roll out to other regions soon.
Eco-Friendly Routing
In addition to the immersive view, eco-friendly routing was launched recently in the US and Canada. This feature lets you see and choose the most fuel-efficient route when looking for driving directions. This feature has inadvertently saved almost half a million metric tons of carbon emissions. This feature is set to expand to more places like Europe.
Live View
The Live View feature helps you find your way when walking around by using AR to display arrows and directions right on top of your world. This is especially helpful when navigating indoor areas such as airports, malls, train stations, etc. With the help of an AI-based technology called global localization, Google Maps can direct where you need to go within a matter of seconds.
As of 2020, almost a billion people use Google Maps every month around the world. As AI and machine learning advancements played a huge role in almost all the announcements made at Google I/O this year, it’s not a surprise that Google Maps was one of the recipients of the AI treatment. With the help of an immersive view, you can experience the vibe of a place from afar. This feature has enormous potential to revolutionize Maps in the future.