Google Maps gets augmented reality search results

  • Open up live view and you can search for things (at the bottom) like Restaurants, ATMs, and shopping locations. (Next in the gallery is Google’s animated gif of this in action.)

  • Look at that! 3D positioned point-of-interest markers in your camera view. Now we just need some AR goggles.

Google Maps loves augmented reality. After launching augmented reality walking navigation in 2019 and indoor AR navigation in 2021, it’s now showing off augmented reality search results.

Augmented reality search results will put markers in your video feed, positioned in 3D space. It’s a dream interface for augmented reality goggles, but for now, it will only work on a phone.

As usual for Maps AR features, this will be powered by Google Maps VPS or “Visual Positioning System.” This is a camera-powered location system: You fire up the camera, point it at the world, and your camera feed is compared against Google’s huge collection of street view data to determine your location. This is an extremely data-intensive way of determining location, but it’s a lot more accurate at orientation and street-level location than a phone compass and GPS, which are both prone to interference.

Like Google said in that original post, “the accuracy of localization through VPS is greatly affected by the quality of both the imagery and the location associated with it.” So this AR feature is getting a limited rollout to only a few cities: London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo. Google says it will be out on Android and iOS “in the coming months.”

Listing image by Google / Ron Amadeo

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1884560