From AR navigation to business messages and reviews, Google Maps is truly a platform. The latest update today focuses on improving the visual quality and detail of the standard layer – especially for nature – in Google Maps.
Originally 18/8/20: The service today has three types of map: default, satellite and terrain. Google is now using a ‘new algorithmic color chart’ technique to translate the existing high definition satellite images into the base map. Behind the scenes, Google used computer vision to identify natural features – dry, icy, wooded and mountainous regions – and then assign a color to them.
If you are exploring a place, you can see its natural features – so you can easily distinguish brown, dry beaches and deserts from blue lakes, rivers, oceans and gorges. You can know at a glance what a lush and green place is with vegetation, and even see if there are snow caps on the peaks of the mountain tops.
For example, a densely covered forest will be dark green, but an “area of patchy shrubs” will get a lighter shade. To see a location and fully appreciate it, zoom out.
This process has been applied to all 220 countries and territories – over 100 million square kilometers of land, with Google viewing Maps as the “most comprehensive view of natural features in any major map application”.
In addition to natural features, Google Maps will soon ‘add a lot of detailed street information showing the exact shape and width of a scale road’.
You can also see exactly where sidewalks, sidewalks and pedestrian islands are located – important information if you have accessibility needs, such as the requirements for wheelchairs or trailers.
It will appear in London, New York and San Francisco in the coming months and then expand to other cities.
Update 1/16/21: Google widely implements these more detailed maps. If you do not see footpaths and other grainy road aspects, try switching (via Android Police) Google Accounts. In addition to the three cities announced during the launch, Central Tokyo receives the same treatment on the mobile and web applications.
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