Google is gearing up to launch several new updates for Maps in the coming months, the company announced today at its Search On event. Google teased the upcoming launches of new Maps features called Immersive View, Neighborhood Vibe and Search with Live View.
The company says all of the features announced today are part of its efforts to build a visual-first Maps experience to help users navigate the world more naturally.
Immersive View
The upcoming Immersive View feature, which Google first announced at I/O in May, is designed to help you plan ahead and get a deeper understanding of a city before you visit it. Immersive view leverages a combination of computer vision and AI technology to fuse together Street view and aerial imagery with what the weather, traffic and crowds will be like on a given day and time. The feature allows users to explore by visually soaring over an area to see what it may look like. Using predictive modeling, Immersive view automatically learns historical trends to determine what an area will be like tomorrow, next week or even next mont.
For example, say you’re planning to visit Oracle Park in San Francisco and want to check it out before you go. You can use Immersive View to see where the parking lots and entrances are, and also see what the weather will be like so you can dress accordingly. You can also use the feature to glide down to street level to see how busy nearby restaurants will be on that given day.
Immersive View is launching in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo in the coming months on Android and iOS. Google says it will add more cities in the future.
Google also announced that it’s launching over 250 photorealistic aerial views of global landmarks today, which it says marks a step toward its goal to offer a more immersive map. Today’s expansion comes as Google added 100 aerial views of global landmarks to Maps in June.
