Mountain View, California — It is absolutely astonishing how much Google Maps has progressed from mere simple to unmanageably highly detailed maps featuring 3D structures since its introduction years ago. According to recent reports, the search engine giant has updated its Google Maps service with several 3D models of landmarks and important historical places all across the globe, including the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Gherkin in London.
Several 3D models of landmarks already embellish Google Maps, but the latest version offers more detailed and enhances the quality of more than thousands of 3D landmarks around the globe so as to ‘make it easier’ to compare the digital map to the physical landscape.
The move is part of embellishing the maps service, but also potentially assisting people more easily find their way around major cities and locations. The new representation looks more like the real buildings with shadows and smoother curves, but they are available just in Google Maps online for now.
Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers have been freshly SketchUp’d
The revision delivers more attractive maps, but could also prove useful when navigating by making landmarks easier to recognize. To illustrate the difference, the company provided a before and after example of Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy.
It is not that the previous imagery of the Piazza was shabby–it was a pretty sharp 3D model, in fact–but the new one makes it look awkwardly dull. Some of the notable improved sites include the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy, the Burj Khaifa in Dubai, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the White House, and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
With each new enhancement of the design of their maps, it is becoming evident that Google Maps does not want their maps to look like maps so much as they want them to look like the real world. And before long, the imagery of buildings in Google Maps will not look identical to how they look in real life only because Google Maps chooses not to make the buildings look that way.
Here it is before:
And then in the after:
In a blog post yesterday, Google Maps software engineer Paul Messmer said landmarks can serve as “one of the most effective ways to help navigate an unknown area”.
Messmer added that the feature will be available soon on Google MapsGL, which is the in-browser hardware-accelerated 3D graphics version of the service with seamless transitions between imagery, is yet to receive the updated 3D landmark renderings. There was no mention though on when this would be available on the mobile versions of Google Maps.
Messmer hopes the enhanced 3D rendering will be of particular use to tourists–“It is much easier to get a sense of your location by simply comparing the shapes of buildings on the map to what you see out your window. By blending 3D buildings with other Google Maps features like Street View and driving directions, you’ll have the most advanced ‘tourist map’ on the planet.”
Of late, Google has been constantly improving its mapping products. Some important thing to note are the 45 degree satellite imagery available in Google Maps, and the Google Earth 6.2 rendering engine update from patchy long-range imagery that smoothes out the quilt of images.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of 3D landmarks comes as speculation grows that Apple is preparing to cut its ties with Google Maps and launch its own maps service for iOS and OSX devices, potentially to include visually-rich 3D models.