'Immersive View for Routes: a new feature in Google maps

Google said today at its annual I/O conference that it will roll out a new "Immersive View for Routes" feature in a few cities. The new feature brings all of the information that a user may need into one place, including details about traffic simulations, bike lanes, complex intersections, parking, and more.

In the upcoming 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 to offer Immersive View for Routes. The feature will roll out on both Android and iOS. You can use the feature whether you’re driving, walking, or cycling to your destination.

The new feature, which expands on Immersive View, was first introduced by Google at I/O last year and is meant to assist you in making travel arrangements and give you a better understanding of a city before you go there. A digital representation of the world is produced by Immersive View using computer vision and AI to combine billions of Street View and aerial photographs. Immersive View for Routes follows the same concept, as it lets you preview and understand a route before you take it.

You can see all the information you need about your route at once with Immersive View for Routes. When you get directions, you’ll see a multidimensional  experience that allows you to preview bike lanes, sidewalks, crossroads, and parking along your journey.

Based on current and past data that Google has gathered about a particular area, the feature allows you to see what the weather might be like on a particular day or what traffic might look like at a certain time. It has a time slider so you can observe the route's appearance as the weather changes during the day and information on the air quality.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, stated during the company's keynote address that "Google Maps provides 20 billion kilometers of directions every day." " Wow, that's a lot of journeys. Imagine being able to plan your entire trip in advance. You can now, whether you're driving, cycling, or strolling, thanks to Immersive View for Routes.

Google also announced that it’s launching an Aerial View API for developers that lets them include a pre-packaged, bird’s-eye video of an area into their apps and websites to show what a place looks like in a visual way. One of Google's first collaborations was with the real estate company Rent.com, which uses the API to make rental properties and their surroundings more visible to tenants so they may virtually tour neighborhoods.

Google is also releasing a test version of photorealistic 3D games for developers. The new functionality within the Google Maps Platform allows developers to easily create customized, immersive map experiences and visualizations that are unique to their business.