
Google Launches ‘Live View’ AR Walking Directions for Google Maps - jbredeche
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/08/google-launches-live-view-ar-walking-directions-for-google-maps/
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crazygringo
Whenever I come out of an unfamiliar subway station in NYC and am trying to
get my bearings, my iPhone's compass direction is often off by 45° or more --
the blue arrow in Google Maps can be useless to know which way I'm pointing,
and I always have to verify with street names.

Curious if this will be a problem for AR.

(When I'm consistently above-ground, however, e.g. on a car trip, compass
orientation remains perfect -- I'm assuming it calibrates itself to GPS
movement or something.)

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modeless
This is _exactly_ the scenario that AR is best suited for. Assuming that it
works at all, the orientation data from the camera + gyro will be essentially
perfect.

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abalaji
This is right, the information can be combined using the uncertainties given
by each observation through a process known as sensor fusion. [1] An article
that pops up sometimes on HN describes one way to combine such information
known as a Kalman filter. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion)

[2] [https://www.bzarg.com/p/how-a-kalman-filter-works-in-
picture...](https://www.bzarg.com/p/how-a-kalman-filter-works-in-pictures/)

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KaiserPro
Frustratingly, they don't explain how it works, or why it useful.

1) its a visual search. This means that using streetview data, google has
crunched a sparse 3d pointcloud. Each of these points are represent a globally
unique has of a point. (a global descriptor)

2) This is better than GPS, because its possible to resolve a position to
~20cms and crucially where true north is. Crucially it doesn't need an
unobstructed view of the sky to resolve a position.

In urban canyons, where sky is limited, there are loads of unique visual
points that are more than enough to calculate an accurate position. It also
works inside, in places like malls.

The drawback is that it requires constant updating to remain accurate,
buildings and hoardings change. Now, there is a patent for self updating, but
google doesn't own it.

Also, they don't appear to be offering this service to third parties, which is
a shame.

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cavisne
This is great for big cities. I live in a medium sized city and GPS works
pretty good in most places. I was surprised just how bad it is in NYC (with
much taller and denser buildings), unless you can orientate yourself manually
with a business the location is not accurate.

This does the work for you.

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51Cards
Nice that this is finally live. I was in the beta group for it for about a
year and really liked the feature. Only shortcoming was at night it didn't do
well at figuring out your direction as it uses visual clues to get the exact
direction you are pointing. Was great for walking around cities as I travel a
lot.

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conmarap
There's a number of things that are alarming me about this, but I'll focus on
one thing: the privacy implications. Not just for the user, but for those who
will appear in the pictures that Google will be - for sure - ingesting for the
purpose of crowdsourcing street view imagery. Suddenly we have this platform
that will be capturing millions of faces and potentially know where people
have been even if they don't use the app.

Not to mention that this type of app is treating people as incapable of
following directions and it opens up the possibility of new avenues of
advertising. Google already keeps an archive of your whereabouts and can even
tell when you get in and out of a car. Just imagine wielding your phone around
and getting "special offers" for that store you go by but never walk into.

~~~
izacus
> There's a number of things that are alarming me about this, but I'll focus
> on one thing: the privacy implications. Not just for the user, but for those
> who will appear in the pictures that Google will be - for sure - ingesting
> for the purpose of crowdsourcing street view imagery. Suddenly we have this
> platform that will be capturing millions of faces and potentially know where
> people have been even if they don't use the app.

Umm, the camera stream of AR isn't transmitted from your phone. The 3D objects
are rendered on top of detected features on device.

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Nux
How do you know? And even if it doesn't for starters, there's no telling it'll
stay that way.

Very legitimate concern.

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izacus
> How do you know? And even if it doesn't for starters, there's no telling
> it'll stay that way.

Same way I know there's no pagan god hiding in my phone whispering my secrets
to evil aliens: by actually working with the technology, observing the
behaviour of my device and reading the privacy policies and activity log
published by Google and not finding any proof.

Of course you can argue that Google might lie for whatever reason... but then
you probably shouldn't be using Google Maps at all. Or any product built by a
corporation.

~~~
cstejerean
Also by watching the upload bandwidth. If it streams the live video feed off
the device at anywhere near being useful for facial recognition it would be
very noticeable.

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conmarap
It doesn't have to be the entire video feed. it could be snapshots from a
specific direction. If millions use it, there's a good chance even a handful
of snapshots from each user at a location that thousands of people pass by
could get it mapped better than how they currently do.

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sansnomme
Are they comparing live data with Street view data to ensure accuracy or is it
just simple direction overlays through GPS? What algorithm is best for
comparing images in 3D space while taking into account of differences due to
littering, vehicles, street signs etc.? Also this is a great way for automated
outsourced Street view data gathering. Would need a strong image stabilization
algorithm but nothing a big enough neural network can't handle, in theory at
least.

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jjeaff
It seems to use image recognition of buildings and other features. When I
tried it a few days ago, it shows sparkly dots on surrounding things and even
shows an image overlay of a building and suggests you line it up with
surrounding buildings.

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shpx
Super cool. It even worked for me at night, although I was walking down a
brightly lit major street.

I wonder if it could work in a dark alley or do indoor navigation in malls.

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aerovistae
Too bad the compass still doesn't know which way I'm facing 90% of the time.

~~~
ridewinter
Google uses AI along with the camera to correct the compass. If they could
integrate this correction with their standard compass API it would be a game
changer.

As a side note, the API docs in both Android and iOS fail to mention how
unreliable the compass outputs are!

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tjoff
Or they don't don't know about it. It is pretty apparent that the google maps
team have never tried to navigate via compass on an actual phone.

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martyvis
Compass operation is clearly dependant on the hardware and your physical
surroundings. My phone compass ( LG V30+) works well in a suburban street or
open bushland, showing high sensitivity. Inside my steel framed house or 5
metres from a 40 storey steel reinforcement sky scrapers not so much. ( And
not much different from my 40 year old Silva compass) That's why Google is
using the camera, Street view and AR to align the orientation

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tjoff
Yes. And why, for the love of everything that is holy, can you not disable
compass navigation then?!?

Even gps direction is _vastly_ superior during walks - despite the obvious
issues with that.

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arjo129
A Friend of mine and I had attempted something similar but in an indoor
setting. The key problem we faced is that the compass will in the phone and
positioning system. The way we overcame the orientation was by using the
camera to combine the visual odometer data with the compass measurements. We
also faced issues with the localisation as being indoor meant we had to rely
on wifi location which was not very good. Again, the way we got over this was
to use the visual odometry, and rely on users turning.
[https://github.com/chelseyong/Android-App-AR-Map-
Navigation](https://github.com/chelseyong/Android-App-AR-Map-Navigation)

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forkLding
Had this feature on my Google Maps a while back, thought it was already
released and has some fun using it, but you need a constant internet
connection

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xxpor
I think they beta tested on Pixel phones.

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zamalek
That must be it.

I rarely use walking directions due to the awful accuracy of GPS between
buildings. AR walking directions are fantastic.

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aiddun
How much of a battery drain is current AR tech? I would imagine it's decently
computationally expensive.

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craftinator
Why is this a thing? Why would Google invest money to create this? To use it,
you must hold your phone in front of your face, with camera on, while walking.
It is a regression in my opinion, because it adds no value to their current
walking navigation system, and also encumbers the user with having to hold
their phone up at eye level. Is it a cool novelty? Yes. Is it useful or
productive (other than creating a new surface for advertising)? No. I strongly
advise against using this gimmick. Please don't feed the bear. That is all.

~~~
jjeaff
It actually does not allow you to walk and use it at the same time. It is
meant for stopping, getting your bearings, and then putting your phone down
and continuing on your way.

It definitely would be useful in unfamiliar, dense urban environments where
maybe the streets are a bit too close together to easily distinguish on an
overview map.

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yoz-y
It does allow you to walk and use it at the same time. But since it auto
switches to normal view when you hold the phone flat it is easy to swap
between both modes.

