Unparalleled degree of 3D realism and scale helps people get a feel for places before they get there – Major step in Nokia’s plans to bridge real and virtual worlds
Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced photorealistic 3D models of metropolitan areas for the web version of Ovi Maps. This immersive and free feature adds a new dimension to the Ovi Maps experience and enables people to explore places in a completely different way.
Introduced at the Where 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, California, Nokia’s 3D offering is the most realistic available and goes beyond rendering limited areas and buildings by making entire cities, including suburbs, available for exploration.
Starting with a bird’s-eye view, people can scale up and down and move around objects such as buildings and trees from their desktop, experiencing a virtual but super realistic perspective of new places. Road-level imagery completes the experience with a detailed 360-degree panoramic view of streets.
With the beta service featuring 20 metropolitan areas, the number of photorealistic 3D models will increase over time. The road-level imagery is now available for five cities, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and San Francisco.
With the goal of bridging the real and virtual worlds on both mobile and web, Nokia’s Ovi Maps for mobile covers 180 countries, nearly 100 of them navigable in 53 languages. Ovi Maps on the web covers 180 countries, 93 of them navigable, in 29 languages.
"Ovi Maps’ photorealistic 3D models of metropolitan areas are a significant step towards our vision of bridging the real and virtual world, with location-based services being the glue," said Michael Halbherr, senior vice president, Nokia.
"With Ovi Maps on mobile, Nokia has shown its ability to transform a useful feature into a mass market experience that lays the foundation for innovation in location-based services beyond traditional routing benefits. With its efforts to expand the service to the web, Nokia is proving that it offers a holistic service," said Daryl Chiam, Principal Analyst, Canalys.
Nokia’s photorealistic 3D models of metropolitan areas initially include:
| – Barcelona – Boston – Chicago – London – Copenhagen – Florence – Helsinki – Las Vegas – Los Angeles – Madrid |
– Miami – Milan – New York – Oslo – Prague – San Francisco – Stockholm – Toronto – Venice – Vienna |
About Nokia
Nokia is committed to connecting people to what matters to them by combining advanced mobile technology with personalized services. More than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia, from our most affordable voice-optimized mobile phones to advanced Internet-connected smartphones sold in virtually every market in the world. Through Ovi (www.ovi.com), people also enjoy access to maps and navigation on mobile, a rapidly expanding applications store, a growing catalog of digital music, free email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, and Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the leading providers of telecommunications infrastructure hardware, software and professional services globally.