Google Maps updated, offers over 25 million building footprints and more

Google has continued improving their Maps application over the past week weeks, in an attempt to make it the best mapping solution in the market. Last week they included thousands of miles of roads for street view, and now they have included over 25 million building footprints which will be available on both mobile and desktop platforms.

These footprints include several major cities like, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami Houston and San Francisco Bay Area. These changes should be apparent in several cities around the US.

The following graphic demonstrates the building footprints on the right side compared to how it used to be before.

Google builds their mapping data by capturing aerial images and combining the raw images with computer vision processing,  which contributes to dimensions and shapes for buildings. This is the same core process used in Google 3D Maps.


source - Google