This blog entry by Jeff Thurston, which describes the integration of the real world with the virtual, has echoed something that I often think about and try to show to people with video concepts because I just can't find the words to describe it. In Jeff's words:

While the article points out that imagery is now being collected horizontally, to enable realistic building facades and so on, one might very well argue that even that will not survive much longer as CCTV are now growing in number, covering just about every angle in most major cities. Perhaps real-time 3D at the street level is next up, in which case we will be walking through videos, rather than still images.

He's absolutely right, and I created a short video with the help of a clip from USC showing a simulated transition from satellite, to aerial, to 3D and finally to integrated "real" video stitched into the "virtual" world. Check it out.

Longer Example Of Fusing Video With Virtual Worlds

The MSNBC Rising from Ruin web site put together after hurricane Katrina used some virtual 360 degree pictures and videos to document some of the stories in Louisiana. They sent a team from Microsoft that was doing work in this area, and they performed the data capture and processing. The really neat thing about the video is that, while it is static in time, every user can stream it to their local system and pan the camera manually for a full 360 degree view, while simultaneously viewing their location on a Virtual Earth map.  

While anything is possible, there are many challenges to his concept of providing a real-time video walk-through,  not the least of which is the question of how the camera will move independently for every user of the system. I'm sure the answer will have something to do with quantum theory.