Announced at Google I/O last year, the new Google Maps ‘Immersive View’ is rolling out today in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo.
According to TechCrunch, Google plans to launch Immersive View in Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice in the coming months, among other cities.
Officially launched today at an event in Paris, the new Google Maps feature fuses billions of Street View and aerial images to create a digital model.
Immersive View also layers information on top of the digital model, including details about the weather, traffic, and how crowded a location may be.
“To create these true-to-life scenes, we use neural radiance fields (NeRF), an advanced AI technique, transforms ordinary pictures into 3D representations,” says Google.
Google says with NeRF, it can accurately “recreate the full context of a place including its lighting, the texture of materials and what’s in the background.”
Additionally, the company announced another new feature called “glanceable directions,” which will be released worldwide in the coming months on iOS and Android.
The feature lets you track your journey right from your route overview or lock screen. Users will see updated ETAs and where to make your next turn. If you decide to take another path, the app will update your trip automatically.
Lastly, the Google Maps Indoor Live View will expand to over 1,000 new airports, train stations, and malls in cities around the world over the next few months.
