Google Maps to get Immersive View for routes and more


Google unveiled a new feature to Maps, that uses AI to show you your route before you leave during its I/O event. Developers can also use the immersive experiences of Maps in their applications.

Immersive View for Routes on Maps

Google has announced a new feature called Immersive View for routes on Maps, enabling users to preview their entire route visually, including bike lanes, sidewalks, intersections, and parking spots, before starting their journey.

Using computer vision and AI, Immersive View merges billions of Street View and aerial images to create a comprehensive digital model of the world, allowing you to view all the essential information about your route at once.

Additionally, with the time slider, you can see air quality information and weather changes along the route, ensuring that you are prepared for any weather conditions.

Immersive View for routes puts all the information you need about your route in one place.
Aerial View API: New Opportunities for Developers

To offer more visual information about a place, Google is introducing the Aerial View API, enabling developers to integrate a 3D birds-eye video of a point of interest into their apps.

Aerial View of Google’s Spear Street office in San Francisco

The Aerial View API will provide developers with a new way to build immersive experiences in their apps, like Rent., which uses the Aerial View API to help renters visualize a property and its surroundings.

Photorealistic 3D Tiles: Customizable 3D Maps for Developers

Google is also launching an experimental release of Photorealistic 3D Tiles through their Map Tiles API, enabling developers to customize their 3D maps with high-res, 3D imagery behind Google Earth without having to build the 3D map from scratch.

With this technology, developers can create immersive experiences unique to their brand, such as 3D maps of national parks or virtual guided tours of architectural landmarks, overlaying markers to share historical information.

Availability

Google has shared that it plans to introduce Immersive View for routes in select cities in the coming months.

This feature will be available in cities like Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo, and Venice.

Commenting on the announcement, Miriam Daniel, VP, Google Maps Experiences, said:

AI is enabling us to change Maps and offer immersive experiences in many ways. We look forward to seeing the new creations of our developer community as we keep making Maps more useful and easy to use.