Niantic is making constant improvements to Pokémon GO, and the latest is a new “mixed reality” feature to make the game look more realistic.
One of the limitations of current Augmented Reality technology is that it is unable to distinguish foreground objects that should be seen ahead of artificially added objects.
As a result, in the current Pokémon game the characters appear superimposed on any element, even those that should cover them.
With the new technology that Niantic is going to implement, this will no longer happen, but objects such as trees, buildings and others will be able to hide the characters when they are behind. The company has published a video in which we can see this functionality in action.
This functionality will be in beta when it is deployed. Niantic specifically mentions the Pokémon friend so at first, these might be the only elements of the game where the new Augmented Reality technology is visible.
In addition to these new features, Niantic is adding one more new functionality to the game: PokeScan scanning. This will allow you to scan PokéStops and Gyms using the phones, both walking the areas where those places are and taking videos of them.
The purpose of this is for the game to be able to show players a 3-D map of those locations, so players are helping to create those game maps. Initially, this will only be available to coaches who are level 40 in worse June, later Niantic plans to extend it to all coaches.
