Google has announced some exciting news for Street View fans: the latest beta version of Google Maps has introduced the “Connected Photos” feature, which allows users to use photos taken by themselves to create a street view in the GPS app. Previously, this was only possible with a 360º camera.
But it's not for everyone, unfortunately. Street View now supports this feature on Android users, but only devices that support ARCore technology. It's an Android feature used in various forms of augmented reality. If your phone doesn't have it, you've probably already figured it out. This year, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp users were in for a rude awakening. They found themselves unable to play the game, with no chat, after an update included the feature and made their phones retroactively incompatible.
To help Street View, all you need to do is capture images as you navigate through a location. Then the Google Maps app and Street View will do the rest: “Once you capture your images and publish them through the Street View app, we’ll automatically rotate, position, and create a series of connected images,” Google said on its official blog. “We’ll then position these connected images correctly in Google Maps, so your Street View can be found at the exact location where the photo was taken, for others to see and explore.”
New Google feature allows users to use their own photos in Street View (Image: Disclosure/Google)
Google has also confirmed that user-generated image views will take priority on Google Maps, being highlighted with a blue dotted line if the area you are passing through has such photos.
The idea promises to please residents of addresses that need some updating. Often, the original Street View recordings (taken with a Google car equipped with cameras in all directions) are already outdated – some areas that were under construction when the service first captured them now have complete homes.
For now, the “Connected Photos” feature is only available for testing in Toronto (Canada), New York and Austin (USA), as well as Nigeria and Indonesia. Although tests have been conducted in Brazil, there is still no information on the availability of the service here. Brazil is usually one of the places used for testing, so it should be soon.
Source: Google