Google Maps is getting a new feature called Immersive View that lets users experience a kind of drone-level aerial view of some of the world’s best-known cities.

Google LLC Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said during his Google I/O 2022 keynote today that Immersive View relies on “billions of photos” and processes them with artificial intelligence to model buildings, trees and other landmarks in 3D. The new view is designed to help people better understand the topography of a city, rotate their perspective so they can look between buildings, and check out the traffic and weather conditions at different times of the day.

During his keynote, Pichai showed off a 3D representation of London in Immersive View. It’s as if the viewer is flying above the city at low altitude in a drone. “If you’re thinking of heading to see Big Ben, you can check if there’s traffic, how busy it is, and even see the weather forecast,” Pichai said.

More impressive, perhaps, is that it’s even possible to see the interior of some local buildings, restaurants included.

“What’s amazing is that this isn’t a drone flying in the restaurant — we use neural rendering to create the experience from images alone,” Pichai said. “And Google Cloud’s immersive stream allows this experience to run on any smartphone.”

Google said in a blog post that the new Immersive View will debut with support for a limited number of cities, including Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo, with additional cities to be added soon.

“People expect better experiences with the software they use, including maps. After all, we live in a three dimensional world, and maps have been a compromise for too long,” said Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. “Google is changing the paradigm now with Immersive View, generating more human, 3D perspectives of the cities we live in. One could even say it is the tender beginnings of the metaverse.”

At Google I/O, the company also announced some other updates to Google Maps. Notably, its eco-friendly routing feature, which has already launched in the U.S. and Canada and helps drivers find the most fuel-efficient route to their destination, will soon launch in Europe.

To date, Google shared that the feature is estimated to have saved more than a half-million metric tons of carbon emissions. That’s the equivalent of taking 100,000 cars off the road, Google said. So by expanding into Europe, Google hopes to double this figure.

There was also a handsome gift for developers in the launch of Google’s new ARCore Geospatial application programming interface, which provides a way to use Google Map’s Live View feature in third party applications.

Live View is a feature in Maps that overlays augmented reality arrows and directions on top of the real world as it’s seen through a smartphone camera. The experience is like being dropped directly inside Google Street View. The idea is that people can pull out their phone and enter Live View whenever they’re disoriented.

Google is now letting developers build their own apps using Live View technology. At I/O, it shared the work of some of its earliest partners. For instance, Lime Technology Ltd., the micromobility firm, is using the Live View API to create an app that helps commuters in Bordeaux, London, Madrid, Paris, San Diego and Tel Aviv to find a parking spot for their e-scooters and e-bikes.

Meanwhile, Accenture Plc and Telstra Corp. Ltd. have built an app with Live View that helps concertgoers and sports fans easily find their seats, concessions stands and restaurants at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. Lastly, in Japan, NTT Docomo Inc. and a company called Curiosity are using Live View to create a new game where players and their robot allies get to battle virtual dragons outside of Tokyo’s major landmarks.

Images: Google