Facing increasing competition from Apple Maps and its 3D city views, Google today unveiled its own vision for the next generation of Google Maps, previewing its new, more “immersive” viewing experience.
The improvement, presented in the Google I/O 2022 keynote, uses a combination of computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques to fuse Street View and aerial imagery to provide a digital model of the world and explore cities, major landmarks, A new approach to restaurants, venues and other places of interest.
Google says it has fused “billions” of images together to create this immersive view that enables users to explore an area by visually soaring to see what it might look like. For example, if you’re planning a trip to London, you can use the feature to check out landmarks like Big Ben or Westminster to better understand the place, local living experiences, and exciting architecture. Users can also use a “time slider” to adjust what the area looks like at different times of the day — a feature that’s a bit like Apple Maps’ night mode, activating moonlight at dusk, and even navigating the city in 3D.
Google’s immersive mode will also allow users to query local weather and traffic conditions to help with planning. This new model won’t stop at showing major cities with a more immersive perspective — it’ll also make it easier to explore interiors, including nearby restaurants and other popular venues.
Users will be able to glide to street level and tap to see what’s inside of places they might want to go. This can help people figure out what kind of ambiance a restaurant might have, etc., and also see from this level how busy the area is on-site and what traffic is nearby.