At today’s annual I/O conference, Google announced that a new “Immersive View for Routes” feature will be added to some cities in Google Maps. The brand-new function consolidates all of the information that a user might require into a single location, including specifics regarding traffic simulations, bike lanes, intricate intersections, parking, and other topics.
In the coming months, 15 cities, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tokyo, and Venice, will begin offering Immersive View for Routes. The feature will be available for both iOS and Android. The feature can be used to get to your destination whether you’re driving, walking, or cycling.
The new feature, which is based on Google’s first-ever announcement of Immersive View at I/O last year, is meant to help you prepare ahead of time and gain a deeper understanding of a city before you visit it. Immersive View creates a digital world model by combining billions of Street View and aerial images using computer vision and artificial intelligence. The same idea applies to Immersive View for Routes, which lets you see and understand a route before you take it.
With Vivid View for Courses, you can see all the data you really want about your course immediately. You will see a multidimensional experience when you get directions that lets you see bike lanes, sidewalks, intersections, and parking as you travel.
Based on both current and past data that Google has gathered about a specific area, this feature lets you see what the weather might be like on a particular day or what the traffic might be like at a particular time. It has a time slider so you can see information about air quality and how the route changes as the weather changes throughout the day.
During the keynote address that the company delivered, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated, “Google Maps provides 20 billion kilometers of directions every day.” “That’s a lot of trips. Imagine if you could see your whole trip in advance. With Immersive View for Routes, now you can, whether you’re walking, cycling, or driving.”
In addition, Google announced that it would be launching an Aerial View API for developers. This API will enable developers to incorporate a pre-packaged bird’s-eye video of an area into their apps and websites in order to visually convey a location’s appearance. Rent.com, a real estate company, was one of Google’s first partners. The company is using the API to help renters visualize a property and its surroundings so they can virtually explore a neighborhood.
In addition, Google is releasing Photorealistic 3D titles for developers in an experimental release. Developers can now quickly and easily develop brand-specific, immersive map experiences and visualizations thanks to a new feature in the Google Maps Platform. An interactive map tour with markers overlaying architectural landmarks, for instance, could be developed by a tourism company to share restaurant information.