iOS 6 3D maps

[Anonymous]

Has anyone else had a play with the new iOS 6 3D model maps? They are amazing! There's not a lot of cities done yet, but we found a few good ones.

It won't seem to let me post images, but we've put them on our blog here.

Keen to see what other ones people have explored though

[Karl Ottenstein]

Pretty cool, but also quite bizarre. Check out the attached buildings in Seattle that look like a post apocalyptic thing. Ditto parking lots which look like the cars have melted into the pavement. Some great highlights, but still work to be done.

[Anonymous]

haha very true! it'll be great to see it in a couple of years time.

[Ralph Wessel]

Karl wrote:
look like the cars have melted into the pavement.

The models are constructed from a series of photos taken from different vantage points. Most of the weird effects occur because something changed between photos, e.g. cars either left or arrived, or lighting levels/shadows changed drastically. When the photos are merged, you get an amalgamation of everything in the photos, e.g. an empty parking lot merged with a full one (so the cars appear to blend with the pavement). It's a bit like taking a photo with low light levels and seeing things smeared or ghosted across the image. I'm constantly disappointed with the tech media, who should know (and explain) these things, but instead choose to feign ignorance in order to mock the results.

[Anonymous]

Yes but that's the "media" in general. I'm still massively impressed by these 3D maps.

[Anonymous]

It is irrelevant for the end user why it is happening. The fact is that competition have the 3D model without this problems.
It's like explaining to the owner that the paint is white, but you see it blue because I used the wrong white balance settings.

[Ralph Wessel]

Miki wrote:
It is irrelevant for the end user why it is happening. The fact is that competition have the 3D model without this problems.

No competing product is perfect. Google maps, for example, has satellite photos where I live that are many, many years out of date and show many local businesses in the wrong place. The doctor's surgery, for example, is shown about a mile from its real location. Some new roads are missing. If I ask for directions, it will happily suggest I can drive up a stepped pedestrian walk-way that cannot be negotiated in a vehicle. My sat-nav occasionally doesn't know about new roads or intersection changes, e.g. changes from a roundabout to lights or changes to turning restrictions, and once tried to send me the wrong way up a one-way street.

I could write them all off as faulty, but I understand the practical difficulties involved in trying to maintain good data on such a vast scale. There are reasons for every flaw, and understanding both that can exist (and why) will help users make best use of the data that is correct.

[Anonymous]

It'll be interesting to see how quickly they fix these errors though. It is a huge company they could easily employ 1000 people to drive around and test it.

I hear they are making all apple retail staff use the new maps and report errors, which must be at 50,000+ people.