This article was published on October 12, 2015

Google Street View adds virtual reality support


Google Street View adds virtual reality support

If you have a Google Cardboard compatible headset lying around, Street View is about to get a lot more fun.

Google today announced support for Cardboard in its mobile Street View apps for Android and iOS. The update will allow you to explore locations in 360 degrees (although not quite 3D, as that would require a different camera set up).

Street View is one of the most obvious applications for Cardboard, given it’s already constructed in 360 degrees; it’s somewhat surprising Street View didn’t have the feature earlier.

In the same blog post, the company also announced that Cardboard is now available worldwide, including 39 languages and over 100 countries.

Finally, devs are getting some love too. Google says it’s updated the Cardboard SDK to provide tools for better drift correction, and the Unity rendering SDK now works fully natively. This basically means cardboard apps will run more smoothly: iOS apps can take advantage of Apple’s Metal graphics system, and Android users can take advantage of multi-threaded rendering.

Bringing Google Cardboard and VR to the world [Google Developers Blog]

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with