Esri Collaborates with Google Maps Platform to Offer High-Quality Photorealistic 3D Tiles

March 10, 2025 at 08:00 AM EDT

New Integration Provides Highly Detailed and Visually Immersive Basemaps in ArcGIS

At its 2025 Partner Conference, Esri—the global leader in location intelligence—announced a collaboration with Google Maps Platform. Enabling users to create highly detailed and visually immersive 3D maps and scenes, this collaboration integrates Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles into the ArcGIS suite.

"We are excited to collaborate with Google Maps Platform and bring this valuable data to our user community," said Richard Cooke, Corporate Director of Global Business Development at Esri. "By making Google's Photorealistic 3D Tiles available for our users, it empowers them to enhance a wide-ranging set of innovative maps and apps with high-quality 3D Tiles that provide global coverage, fresh updates and are high-resolution for solving real-world challenges."

The integration of Google Maps Platform's Photorealistic 3D Tiles into ArcGIS will allow users to construct richer maps and scenes, supporting analytics, across a variety of applications including urban planning, real estate, and public sector infrastructure projects. This collaboration is part of Esri’s longstanding commitment to providing users with high-quality geospatial data and 3D basemap capabilities.

"Users have long sought more detailed and photorealistic 3D basemaps," said Deane Kensok, ArcGIS Content CTO at Esri. "This 3D basemap will be a valuable addition to our basemap collection, providing a more realistic and detailed view of metropolitan areas for large parts of the world. It can be used on its own or seamlessly integrated with users’ data, enhancing the visual context and enabling more detailed and accurate analysis."

Access to high-fidelity 3D meshes provides users with the ability to visualize projects such as urban development plans, real estate planning, and AEC projects, all in realistic environments. This allows users to explore and overlay their own data, like points of interest or community resources, to create comprehensive and detailed maps. This new integration also empowers users to perform interactive analyses, such as shadow studies, lines of sight, and viewsheds. As a result, stakeholders can see a clear and detailed representation of potential future outcomes within a visually familiar landscape.

Esri customers will gain access to the world’s most comprehensive photorealistic 3D map with Google Maps Platform's high-resolution Photorealistic 3D Tiles, available in 2,500 cities across 49 countries. All this content will be available through users’ subscriptions to ArcGIS Online.

“We know creators and developers across platforms want rich, photorealistic 3D visualizations and that is why we are excited to bring Google Maps Platform’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles to ArcGIS,” said Eugene Yeh, Director of Go-to-Market for Google Maps Platform. “We look forward to seeing how Esri’s global community of geospatial professionals uses 3D Tiles to enrich their understanding of the world.”

Google Maps Platform's Photorealistic 3D Tiles will be available to ArcGIS users by Q3 of 2025. To learn more about Esri’s work with Google, visit go.esri.com/3Dtiles.

About Esri

Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, helps customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, USA, Esri software is deployed in hundreds of thousands of organizations globally, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofit institutions, and universities. Esri has regional offices, international distributors, and partners providing local support in over 100 countries on six continents. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial technology and analytics, Esri engineers the most innovative solutions that leverage a geographic approach to solving some of the world’s most complex problems by placing them in the crucial context of location. Visit us at esri.com.

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