San Francisco — Google on Friday, unveiled several aesthetic refinements to its Maps program, the biggest changes since its initial launch 4.7 years ago, the company said. The changes come in a variety of forms, such as sharpening up the imagery, improvements to color, density, typography, and road-styling. These changes are visible instantly in the “map” and “hybrid” views around the world.
For this map of San Francisco, for example, Google has improved the readability and density of the roads, in contrast to background detail such as local roads, and neighborhoods and major arterial roads. Notice how the roads and names are visible more effectively in the new version. As visible in the above photo, the thick street outlines that can make maps harder to read have been eliminated.
While the company appended a number of refinements to the digital topographies, such as walkways, address labels, bus stops, new countries, and better satellite imagery, the look of the overall look of the map has not changed much.
“Today’s changes are intended to keep the same information-rich map while making it easier to pick out the information that is most useful,” Google wrote in a blog post.
Here are cleaner rail lines for London’s tube system:
Google describes the update here:
“For example, in map view, local and arterial roads have been narrowed at medium zooms to improve legibility, and the overall colors have been optimized to be easier on the eye and conflict less with other things (such as traffic, transit lines and search results) that we overlay onto the map,” explains Jonah Jones of the Google Maps User Experience Design team. “Hybrid roads have gained a crisp outline to make them easier to follow, and the overall look is now closer to an augmented satellite view instead of a simple overlay.”
In another Google Maps related comments, you may have seen that Google officially announced its Street View Trike last week, even though it has been around for quite some time. If you visit to Google Maps now, there is a link to a “Street View Trike Special Collections Poll,” which is now open.
“Tell us where to ride!” Google says. “The Street View trike has already collected some imagery, but now we are accepting your suggestions for where to send it next in the United States. Send us your most inspired suggestions for the places you really want to see featured in Street View.”
There are lots of other enhancements being made to Google Maps. For instance, earlier this month, Google rolled out a new dataset for it, which opened up a lot more scenery.
Nevertheless, these improvements are more than crucial at a time when Yahoo, Microsoft, and maybe even Apple are vying for users with their own map programs. More before and after shots are on the Google blog.