Inside Niantic Spatial’s audacious plan to scan the world

# Niantic is Building a Crowdsourced Map for Robots Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, is launching a new platform called Scaniverse that lets anyone with a smartphone or camera help create detailed 3D maps of the world—maps that robots will eventually use to navigate cities and deliver packages. Instead of sending out expensive scanning cars like Google does, Niantic wants regular people to contribute images and data, which gets combined into constantly updated maps that stay accurate as cities change. This crowdsourced approach could be much cheaper and faster than traditional mapping methods.