This huge upgrade to Google Maps brings granular data at street level to major cities

Google Maps gets an upgrade that brings granular data at street level to cities

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Google Maps needs a major upgrade, including street-level data and more detailed terrain, thanks to fifty applications from Google’s computer vision smarts.

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

Street-level data will soon show the shape and width of the city’s streets on a scale, as well as the exact location of sidewalks, crossings and pedestrian islands – extremely useful information for wheelchair users or parents with children.

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Google is releasing the updates at a time when more people are traveling to cities than other means of solo 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 location.

More detailed Google Maps will be available in the coming months for London, New York and San Francisco, 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.

Google’s new color mapping algorithm technology allows users to more accurately identify different types of terrain maps

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This is all thanks to what Google calls its new “color-mapping algorithmic technique”, in which computer vision is applied to its extensive catalog of satellite images. The algorithm identifies dry, icy, wooded and mountainous areas and then colors them in accordance with the HSV color model: beaches and deserts appear in tan, snowy and icy areas in white, and vegetation takes on varying green shades based on their density. .

“Google Maps has high-definition satellite imagery for more than 98 percent of the world’s population. , “Google said in a blog post.

The update to Google Maps will be shipped this week to all 220 countries where the app is available. Google Maps Platform developers can apply the new styling to their September 15th maps: when developers create a new map style in the Cloud Console, it will be automatically generated in Google’s enhanced map format.

Any maps created by developers by September 15 will retain the old color scheme until Google rolls out the update in early 2021 through the entire Google Maps Platform, Google said.

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