Typography improvements on Google Maps

We just launched a couple of nice typography improvements on Google Maps. We now have clearer country/state/province labeling with the introduction of text tracking and more distinct styles, and a new treatment for water bodies makes it easier to distinguish water labels from land labels. Both combine to make the map a little more legible and less noisy, as you can see from the below before/after screenshots:

Good Design Award 2011

We just won the Good Design Award 2011 for our work on the Google Maps Japan map tiles!

For more details on what we did, see my earlier blog post about it, or the Good Design website...

Google Maps goes indoors

We just launched a killer new feature on Google Maps for Android: indoor maps! Initial coverage includes some of the largest retailers, airports and transit stations in the U.S. and Japan:

"Google Maps for Android is fantastic. Between its free GPS Navigation feature, speedy downloads thanks to vector-based maps, and offline caching, the app is leagues ahead of the Maps app on iOS. And it keeps getting better. Today, Maps for Android is getting upgraded to version 6.0, and it includes a long-anticipated feature that presents a huge technical challenge: indoor maps." -- Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch

"Google’s Maps team has made fantastic advances in surveying and mapping seemingly every square inch of navigable ground on the planet. But for mobile users, those maps have always stopped just short of indoor spaces — until now." -- Mike Isaac, Wired

"Some malls and airports can be just as tricky to navigate as a city you don't know. Google Maps for Android now has help, in the form of indoor maps that locate you within a few meters, whatever floor you're on, and show you the shops, facilities, and other things you're looking for." -- Kevin Purdy, Lifehacker

More details in the blog post on the Official Google blog...

See your rated places and discover new ones on Google Maps

We just launched a cool new feature: now you can see places that that you have rated & reviewed, and places recommended for you, directly annotated on the map. By emphasizing the places that you care about, Google Maps now a little bit more personalized for you.

More details in the blog post on the Google Lat Long blog...

3D maps in your browser with Google Maps and WebGL

We just launched a very cool technology preview of something that we've been working on for some time: MapsGL. If you have a modern browser and computer, give it a whirl and try out our new 3D vector-based maps right in your web browser!

Some highlights to look out for:

• Full 3D buildings, with perspective rendering, warm sun highlights and cool shadows, and realistic shadow casting depending on the time of day
• Faster and smoother transitions into streetview, now animated with a cool swoop effect
• Beautiful transitions between imagery, especially when transitioning from top-down to 45 degrees, and when rotating the map

See the difference here in San Francisco with the new MapsGL rendering (top) vs the old static rendering (bottom):

Some nice comments so far:

“All that work to build 3D graphics into the Web just bore fruit on one of the Internet's most useful and widely used sites: Google Maps... Google is creating a virtual reconstruction of the world in 3D, and this is a big step on the way..” -- Stephen Shankland, CNET

“...the Google Maps experience with WebGL is far more in tune with the highly detailed visuals found in the company’s Google Earth application.” -- Tom Cheredar, VentureBeat

"Google provided a sneak peak into the future of Google Maps, in the process showcasing the future of plug-in-free 3-D graphics for the Web." -- David Carr, Information Week

"The coolest part, though, is the addition of 3D buildings to many towns and cities. Not only do they look awesome, but it's helpful to know where actual buildings are on a street..." -- Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker

“Great idea!” ... “This is sweet!” ... “It’s like I’m there… Hello poor man’s free vacation!” -- Comments from the article on Mashable

“Here's what cool: 3D buildings in Google Maps GL are casting shadows based on the current position of the sun, at that location.” ... “Very Cool! Good Stuff.” -- Comments from the article on The Next Web

More details in the blog post on the Official Google blog...

Single language labels launched worldwide on Google Maps

We just launched single language labels across the world. Not only does this make the maps more legible in places with non-English labels by halving the amount of text drawn onto the map, it also makes the map more useful by translating the labels to ones that you'll be familiar with.

In the examples below, see how Switzerland is now labeled once instead of four times, leaving room for us to label Lucerne. Also note now Milano in Italy is now labeled Milan (the English name for the city). In China, the amount of labels is halved due to dropping the Chinese text, leading to a cleaner and more legible map:

More details in the blog post on the Google Lat Long blog...

My Location for directions now supported on Google Maps

We just launched support for My Location when getting directions. This will make getting directions a little bit faster, a lot of the time :-)

More details in the blog post on the Google Lat Long blog...

Helicopter view for directions in Google Maps

We just launched a nifty little feature which lets you preview your directions route in 3D. Now when I get invited to dinner with the queen, I'll have a much better idea of how to get there :-)

"Google Maps Helicopter View Is Like a Sweet Magic Carpet Ride (in a Chopper)" -- Brent Rose, Gizmodo

"...a new and immersive way to plan a trip." -- Jon Mitchell, Read Write Web

"3D route previews, on first glance, appear to mash up the Google Earth and Google Maps experiences quite nicely." -- Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable

More details in the blog post on the Google Lat Long blog...

Improvements to borders on Google Maps

There are a few new visual tweaks that have just gone live on Google Maps:

- Cleaner rendering of country borders, making them look less blurry
- Less prominent rendering of province borders in France, making it easier to distinguish countries/provinces and follow roads
- Better road thinning in France, making it easier to tell major from minor roads
- Improved label density, making the map more legible by removing minor cities from far zooms following the less is more rule :-)

Improvements to POI rendering on Google Maps

I was looking over some of our map tiles from last year, and thought it would be interesting to show how we have improved the rendering of points of interest (POIs). There are a whole bunch of subtle changes to the icons, placement, and visual style that we implemented, resulting in a map that's much more useful and easier to read. Things to notice:

- Better POI placement, with icons aligned with roads & labels avoiding roads
- More road names shown, due to less label collision
- Clearer distinction between different data types (building numbers, roads, POIs)
- Better choice of icons for POIs

(On the left are the tiles from last year, on the right are the current ones):