3d Driving Simulator In Google Maps [top] Guide

This article will unpack everything you need to know about the 3D driving simulator, how to access it, how it differs from Street View, and why it might be the most underrated feature on your phone.

Over the last decade, several projects have attempted to perfect the Google Maps driving experience.

Older maps relied on "raster tiles"—flat images loaded onto a grid. Modern simulators utilize vector data. Vector maps define roads not as pictures of roads, but as lines with mathematical properties (coordinates, curvature, elevation). This is crucial for a driving simulator. If a simulator can read the vector data of a road, it can tell the car "turn left here" or "drive uphill."