Apple Maps Flyover Is Getting a Gaussian Splatting Upgrade

As part of its opening announcements at WWDC, the Cupertino-based company revealed that Flyover within Apple Maps is getting a significant fidelity boost.

While Apple did not say Gaussian Splatting by name, the lifelike 3D visuals coming to the platform are powered by the radiance field representation. Apple has been hiring engineers with Gaussian Splatting experience for several years, and this appears to be the culmination of that effort.

The updates to Apple Maps won’t arrive in earnest until this fall, but they represent what may be the largest deployment of the technology to date. Flyover already spans more than 300 cities and landmarks, built until now on conventional drone-captured photogrammetry. As the story develops, we’ll track it here.

Also shown at WWDC was Apple’s new Reframe feature, which lets users reset a photo’s composition. Apple again did not mention Gaussian Splatting by name during the segment, but we have previously confirmed that both Spatial Photos and Personas are powered by the same representation.

Learn more about WWDC and the subsequent programming here.