InsideMaps Inc

InsideMaps Partners with Google to Bring Smartphone-Based Affordability to Immersive 3D Street View Content

Google selects InsideMaps to its elite "VR Ready" tier of capture partners, bringing premium capabilities to Street View content.

 

Redwood City, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 05/11/2017 --InsideMaps, a leading developer of 3D scanning solutions for the iPhone, is announcing InsideMaps VR Pro. VR Pro is a breakthrough in stereo 3D capture and processing technology that brings radical affordability and quality to the creation of virtual reality (VR) content with true stereo vision for VR and 3D data for Google Street View.

At the Google Street View Summit in Tokyo, Japan on May 11, 2017, InsideMaps unveiled the VR Pro's distinct features that met Google's rigorous standards for the elite "VR Ready" tier of Street View compatible products.

"We're quite impressed with the technology behind InsideMaps VR Pro," said Charles Armstrong, Google Street View product manager. "Using an iPhone, InsideMaps enables the capture of truly immersive Google Street View content. InsideMaps is helping define a new standard for quality, affordability, and ease-of-collection that everybody in our Google Street View trusted community can use. Remarkably, InsideMaps met our high requirement bar with such an affordable, smartphone-based approach to vr ready collection."

Compared to other proprietary hardware sensors that estimate depth using projected infrared (IR) light, InsideMaps VR Pro uses patent-pending software and mainstream smartphone cameras for creating a depth map of any space with only one 360 photo capture, including outdoor spaces.

Outdoor 3D capture, especially in sunny environments, has always been a major limitation of IR sensor-based solutions. Now with InsideMaps, Google Street View businesses, such as those in the restaurant, travel and hospitality industries, can show off the curb appeal of their business, their outdoor dining patios, or beach front vistas in full stereo VR glory.

"InsideMaps leverages the iPhone's excellent camera which allows InsideMaps to deliver stereo HDR panoramas with a photo quality that is better than the raw output of SLR cameras," said Jorgen Birkler, Founder and CTO, InsideMaps. "InsideMaps enhances the iPhone's camera through computational photography and computer vision to deliver unique, geometry-rich experiences on Google Street View that will elevate the preview-before-you-go dynamic that runs central to Google Maps exploration."

InsideMaps VR Pro is the culmination of years of research and development in hybrid app-cloud image processing. To deliver the easiest, one-click capture solution in the market, with the photo quality of SLR cameras, InsideMaps leverages a robotic capture iPhone accessory. The fact that no other company has achieved the quality, ease and affordability of InsideMaps speaks to the challenges and defensibility of the InsideMaps technology.

"InsideMaps is an amazing world class team that has cracked the nut in making VR content creation affordable," said Teppei Tsutsui, Managing Director, GREE VR Capital, LLC. "We have seen other photogrammetry solutions, but InsideMaps is unrivaled in what they are able to do with mainstream smartphones. This time next year, mainstream smartphones using InsideMaps will be the dominant way that most Street View businesses will be captured and the way that VR content of properties will be created. We're excited to be an investor in InsideMaps."

With InsideMaps VR Pro's seamless integration to Google Street View, InsideMaps content creations can be easily uploaded and shared on Google Street View. The simplicity of use provided by InsideMaps makes it possible for anyone to become a Google Street View photographer.

About InsideMaps
InsideMaps brings affordability to the marketing of properties in real estate, hospitality, travel, restaurants, retail, inspections and property management. In real estate, InsideMaps 3D Tour is fast becoming the choice of agents for quality, ease and affordability.

More information about InsideMaps can be found at http://www.insidemaps.com.