SketchUp is a 3D content creation tool that is promoted as "3D for Everyone." It's touted as very easy to learn, yet powerful... I don't yet know if this is true since I'm still not getting around to trying it. Soon, I hope. I need to see what this sucker is like. Anyway... they've announced the release of a SketchUp plugin for Google Earth that has me very, very interested.

I posted an article on another site of mine about the Metaverse Roadmap Project and I brought up a few concepts floating around about the potential of Google's acquisition (recently) of SketchUp as possibly being the first steps toward a virtually navigable Google Earth with 3D content. I'm not too sure how close this gets us to actual avatar-centric navigation of Google Earth, but this obviously (to me) proves the concept is well underway... in some form.

If you don't get what I'm talking about -- especially since I'm not really explaining anything too well -- go snag Google Earth and check out the example links on the SketchUp announcement page linked above. I think it's pretty stinkin' cool! Add a bit of gravity and WASD controls and you could be walking around in these environments! Neat.

So, let's look at this from a game dev research perspective:

Maybe there's some potential in a company like Google working with someone like Virtools, Adobe (ie: Macromedia's Shockwave tech) or one of the many other web 3D technology companies to create an API or toolset for generating online virtual spaces using the Google Earth data.

Maybe I'm just dreaming?

I've played around with projects like the now-defunct Adobe Atmosphere project (random review and community site link) and it seems like a really interesting technology to harness in the creation of at least simple virtual spaces based on real-world locations.

Well... I'm mostly tagging this info here since it is my personal research blog. I'm done talking about this right now. If you want to think more about it or discuss it, please do so. For now, I need to get back to real work. I'll look into this some other day. :)