CNet have a great video of the new Skyline Globe software. According to their press release Skyline Globe will have unique features such as community and collaboration tools, realistic 3D cities, live video and open interfaces to create a powerful platform.
Interestingly the 3D models seem to be supplied by Planet9 which some may remember from the old days of building cities in VRML2.0.
The Video is impressive but as with unofficial view of ESRI that Google Earth is the new Netsape the additional take that Skyline is a Google Earth beater maybe premature. Their TerraExplorer software was interesting but blocked off to the outside world wanting to develop models.
We met with Skyline a few years ago and were informed (in no uncertain terms) that we could not use their software in any way shape or form to import models unless we signed up. Skyline Globe seems to have free tools but it will be interesting to see how open to the development community they now are.
Interesting times ahead but I think we can be sure that Google are looking into video on terrain and buildings asap. If they can link it in with Flash and YouTube we know which software we will be running with.
