Google Showcases New Immersive View Feature For Maps At I/O 2023

This features will first be rolled out in 15 cities around the world in the coming months

• New Immersive View creates a digital model of the city with a 3D view.

• Uses Google’s data to predict future weather and traffic at any given time of day.

• Also displays sidewalks, intersections and parking spots.

• Aims to help users plan their travel better with increased visual details.

• Could be available for select Indian cities by next year.

Google Maps is not only an app almost everyone uses regularly, but it is also the base software used by numerous logistics and transport applications. Be it while driving, riding a bike or even when walking, Google Maps has become a major part of our daily commute, especially for Android users. And, at its annual I/O conference, Google announced that it will soon add a cool new feature to this app called Immersive View for Routes.

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Here’s a brief breakdown of how it works and its benefits:

Builds On Previous Functionalities

Immersive View for Routes is based on a similar feature called Immersive View which Google announced last year. This feature uses billions of street view and aerial images, already part of the Google Maps experience, and computes them using AI to create a digital model of a city.

What It Offers

With this digital model, you get a top-down 3D view of your route that lets you preview details such as bike lanes, sidewalks, intersections and even parking spots. This feature shows you the real-time weather and traffic for the route you’re using and can also give you future predictions for both using the data Google has studied over time.

To better understand how this feature can help, here’s an example. Let’s say you are planning a 200km trip from one big city to another. With Immersive View for Routes, you can look at the entire route as a 3D map and see how the traffic is, which intersection is the most busy, where you can find a parking spot and what the weather is going to be at a certain location.

Now, let’s say you want to see how the traffic and weather will be like one hour into your journey. This feature has a scroll bar on the bottom of the screen which you can use to scroll to that particular time of your journey and it will show what the weather is like at the certain time and how much traffic there is. 

Benefits

Google’s Immersive view for routes can change the way we use maps for our commutes completely. With the added details and information on offer, users can plan their journeys in detail and be better prepared to navigate their way around unknown factors, especially when going somewhere for the first time. 

Seeing traffic density in the Immersive view as opposed to the usual blue, yellow and red lines also paints a clearer picture of the road infrastructure on that route which helps you be better prepared for not missing any turns or for avoiding other commuters. Knowing what the weather and traffic will be like at any point of time in our journey in advance will also help us plan accordingly with regards to attire and estimated trip times. 

As of now, no Indian city is on the list to get this update this year, but we can expect to get this feature sometime next year. Google will start rolling out this feature in a few months and it will first be available to users in 15 cities including Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tokyo and Venice. Let us know how you feel about this in the comments below.