Google Maps indoors at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney.
Google Maps has launched 200 indoor maps for Androids in Australia for shopping centres, train stations and airports.
Users will now be able to navigate inside buildings such as the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney and Flinders Street Station in Melbourne.
Users will be able to upload floorplans, with maps automatically loading when users zoom in on a location.
The indoor maps will show users where they are located in a building, down to what floor they are on and directions on how to get to a destination.
Some locations will also utilise the Google Maps ‘blue dot’ function, which users have been able to use outdoors to track where they are located as they move.
The indoor blue dot function will show users when they move between floors and update the map automatically.
Google Australia said in a blog post that it plans to add new indoor maps throughout the rest of the year.
However, the company has not revealed when it will release indoor maps for iPhones.
"We have no additional announcements or timelines to share at this time," a Google spokesperson told Computerworld Australia.
A Google software engineer has previously said low adoption and insufficient research has slowed the movement of Google Maps indoors.
Waleed Kadous, who leads Google’s indoor map acquisition efforts, said late last year that gathering indoor maps presents unique challenges because it requires acquiring building maps from building owners and GPS coverage is frequently poor inside.
Google has launched indoor maps in eight other countries: US, UK, France, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland.
Google has also released tools for businesses in several countries to upload their own maps.
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