Google Maps has gone wild with updates in the last few days and weeks, just showing how much effort Google is putting in creating the best map application on the market.
Google Maps last week got updated with thousands of miles of roads added in Street View, and now both the mobile and desktop version of Maps get 25 million new building footprints.
Most of those footprints are for large U.S. cities and metros. Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area have been majorly updated. The additions however do touch on the whole United States.
But how did Google manage to add so many new footprints? They did it by using aerial images and combines this raw data with computer vision processing to come up with dimensions and shapes for buildings.
“This process enables us to provide more building footprints and a more comprehensive and detailed map than ever before,” Google said.
Actually, this is the same core process used in Google 3D Maps.
