Google Maps New Immersive View Feature Launches on Mobile App

Google Maps has introduced three new features to make trip planning and exploring easier on their mobile, including their landmark feature, Immersive View.

Their newest feature uses advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to fuse billions of Street View and aerial images to create a rich, digital model of the world. Users can virtually soar over iconic landmarks and explore nearby places.

Immersive Feature has since been expanded to over 500 iconic landmarks around the world on Android and iOS, including the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and Bank of China Tower.

Additionally, the feature provides helpful information such as the weather, traffic, and how busy a place is.

Users can also peek inside of restaurants and cafes to help them decide whether they want to make a reservation, thanks to the use of neural radiance fields (NeRF), an approach for fusing photos to produce a realistic, multi-dimensional reconstruction within a neural network.