Lost in Venice? Follow the arrow! Testing Live View in narrow streets

Getting lost in Venice is easy. All visitors who have tried to find an address (street name + house number) are well aware of this, but so are those who have tried, using Google Maps, to reach somewhere outside the usual tourist routes.

Using Google Maps to navigate in Venice is very difficult. Very narrow alleys, where sometimes two people cannot walk side by side, which are located in the middle of tall buildings, cause the GPS signal to bounce off the walls, and the detected position can be wrong even by several tens of meters. The result is that you may be directed down a dead-end alley, often ending up in a canal.

Furthermore, the numbering of the historic center of Venice is very rare in the world. Venice is made up of 416 islands, connected by 436 bridges, and is divided into six districts. In each district the street numbers are unique, they start from the center of the district and increase progressively, street after street, up to the last number. For example, the famous Doge’s Palace is located in San Marco, 1, while the La Fenice theater is located in San Marco, 1965.

Sometimes businesses also indicate the street name in the address, but this is not a required option, even if it would help a lot those who have to find a place.

In 2005, the municipality of Venice published a document on its official page to explain the “Structure and coding standard of addresses” distinguishing between the “street system” and the “island system”.

The insular numbering was standardized in Venice on 1 July 1841. It was adopted from the old Austrian civic numbering on 1801, and it took around 40 years to be completed.

This means that for almost 200 years getting lost in Venice was considered normal, at least until August 8, 2019, when Google published a news related to Live View in its blog: “There’s nothing like exploring a city on foot–it’s a great way to take in the sights and sounds of a new place. But it can be hard to know exactly which direction to go. With a beta feature called Live View, you can use augmented reality (AR) to better see which way to walk. Arrows and directions are placed in the real world to guide your way. We’ve tested Live View with the Local Guides and Pixel community over the past few months, and are now expanding the beta to Android and iOS devices that support ARCore and ARKit starting this week.”

It was a “Beta” version that a small group of Local Guides had been trying in secret for months, and all the magazines immediately started talking about it.

The official version is released on October 1, 2020 (A new sense of direction with Live View) and for a while everyone asked for news, even here in Connect, then it almost seems that no one has talked about it anymore, probably because few have needed to use it.

If you haven’t needed it yet, then the time has come for you to visit New York, Hong Kong, or Venice, or one of the many medieval cities of Italy, made up of narrow alleys, arcades, galleries.

At that moment you too, like I did, will think: “Lost in Venice? Follow the arrow!”.

What about you?

Have you ever needed to use Live View?

  • If yes, where have you used it and how was your experience?
  • If the answer is No, did this article intrigue you? So what are you waiting for? Try it and come back here to tell us about your experience. Enjoy yourselves.

39 Likes

@ErmesT this is interesting. Is this feature worldwide now? Looks more like an immersive view (AR + 360 View). Cool.

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Hi @ErmesT

Of course I am not surprised !!! Your posts are always very unique,detailed and technical as well. This is an interesting post and I also want to know of this feature os worldwide now or still at an amateur stage of testing.

Even if it’s worldwide,our part of the world is underdeveloped or would you better say developing. For that reason we are at the rear end of these nice developments. I would love to try it out of its available to all part of the world. On my travels,Google is very useful. I’ll try it out if possible and give you the feedback here.

Thank you for sharing and happy guiding

Cheers

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Thank you for asking, @EmekaUlor , @SholaIB .

More than “immersive view” I would say “Augmented Reality”, Emeka, because in fact arrows and labels are superimposed on what your camera see.

I can’t respond about the question “Is this feature worldwide now?”. I know that it is available almost everywhere here in Treviso. But you can check it easily.

Your device

To be enabled, your device need to have an ARCore and ARKit supported phones. Here the list of supported devices. If your device is in the list, you can install Google Play Services for AR

Make an easy test

Once ARCore is installed, run your app and set the navigation to reach a close place, selecting “walking” as the way to reach it.

If the Live View icon is available, you can choose to start the navigation from the Live View button, but you can also decide to switch to live view once the navigation is already ON

When you start Live View, the app will ask you to raise your phone, for the app to scan what is around you.

At this point you will see not only if the App, works, but also if Google has enough information to work in your area.

Yes, the key is this one: to have enough information. Live View is sourcing the data about your position from the buildings you have around.

That’s why it is so powerful in cities like Venice or New York, and it is completely useless where you have an accurate GPS signal.

But when the signal is bouncing on buildings before to reach you, well, that’s when you need Live View not to get lost.

It is in places like the one here below that you absolutely need Live View

Please make a test. I would be happy to know if it works already for you.

Have a Fun

Ermes

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@ErmesT thank you for sharing more details about the feature. I recall we saw this at Connect when it was being tested and also in 2019 when it was expanded to more testers.

My Pixel has an AR Core feature. I have tried to check if it works here but I guess not , I should try it in other cities maybe.

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I see, @EmekaUlor

My hope was to have Live View implemented everywhere.

It is improved a lot from that time, when I was able to try it only in Paris.

I see that there is a lot more to do.

Well, we will do it

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This is wonderful news, @ErmesT . As much as having AR to find Pokemon is fun, I cannot think of a more appropriate place to truly utilize the technology than Venice.

I was lucky enough to visit 10 years ago, but was completely overwhelmed by the chaotic navigation.

Back in my day, the only way to get directions was to ask the Angel of the City, and even he didn’t seem to know which way to go!

Thank you for highlighting this incredibly helpful update!

2 Likes

Wow @ErmesT thanks for sharing this post. I didn’t know anything about this feature. I have to give it a try if i my phone has it. Very interesting and i like the feature. Very informative post.

Keep Guiding!

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Hehe, @JustJake

It is difficult to walk around Venice for an “almost” local like me, I can imagine the difficult for a tourist to move outside of the “standard” touristic pathways.

Live View, due to the high accuracy can really guide you in narrow streets. I am not sure if the Angel of the city tried to walk outside of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

@AnithaM , I think if you are on iOS you will have to install and enable the AR Core app to make it working. For more details about Live View: Use Live View on Google Maps

1 Like