This Huge Google Maps Upgrade Brings Granular Street-Level Data to Big Cities

Google Maps will receive a big update, including street-level data and more detailed terrain, thanks to Google’s nifty Computer Vision Intelligence applications.

Google is rolling out a handful of visual enhancements to its popular Maps app that will help users better understand the area around them. Highly detailed details will be added to urban areas to help pedestrians – especially those with specific accessibility requirements – navigate through cities with greater ease and safety.

Street-level data will soon show the shape and width of city streets to scale, as well as the exact location of sidewalks, level crossings and pedestrian blocks – extremely useful information for wheelchair users. or parents pushing baby carriages.

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Google is releasing the updates at a time when more people are crossing cities on foot or by other solo means of transportation due to the coronavirus pandemic. It follows
the introduction of Live View

in April, which uses augmented reality to present information and directions based on users’ real-time locations.

More detailed Google Maps will be available for London, New York and San Francisco in the coming months, with plans to expand to more cities “over time”.

Further macro-level upgrades will make it easier to distinguish between different types of terrain and identify natural features such as beaches, ravines, and mountains.

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This is all thanks to what Google calls its new “algorithmic color mapping technique”, which involves applying computer vision to its vast catalog of satellite images. The algorithm identifies arid, icy, forested and mountainous areas and then color codes them accordingly based on the HSV color model: beaches and deserts appear in tan, snowy and icy areas in white, and vegetation takes on different shades of green depending on its density.

“Google Maps provides high-definition satellite imagery for over 98% of the world’s population. Thanks to a new algorithmic color mapping technique, we are able to take these images and translate them into an even more complete and dynamic map of the world. ‘an area on a global scale,’ Google said in a blog post.

The Google Maps update will be released from this week in the 220 countries where the app is available. Google Maps Platform developers will be able to apply the new style to their maps starting September 15: When developers create a new map style in the Cloud Console, it will automatically be generated in Google’s improved map format.

All maps created by developers before September 15 will retain the old color scheme until Google rolls out the update across the Google Maps platform in early 2021, Google said.

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