Google 3D data enters the virtual world

This week the virtual world is opening up a new realm. Daniel Terdiman reports that Multiverse Network is partnering with Google to create a new online 3D environment for the masses, including simulations useful in a business context.

The idea is simple: Multiverse's technology--which gives game developers tools to design custom virtual worlds--will let those designers pick and choose from most of the millions of 3D models created using Google's 3D software tool SketchUp, and to import pieces of terrain, as defined by entering specific longitude and latitude data, from Google Earth.

If you want to build a virtual world centered on, say, downtown San Francisco, you could use the new technology to create the area itself and populate it with the digital versions of real-world buildings that have been created and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse.

Called Architectural Wonders, Multiverse's tools make it easier to use Google's SketchUp, 3D Warehouse and Google Earth data in virtual-world production tools.

SceneCaster, a startup I wrote about last month, allows users to create scences using objects from the Google's 3D Warehouse.