Stanford University has developed a program that has a 65% success rate in translating 2D photos into 3D models.
Taken a step or two further, you can imagine taking a photo, converting to a 3D mesh, and easily uploading to Google earth, into a modeling program for tweaking, and importing into virtual worlds.
The real comes to the virtual just as the virtual is starting to arrive in the real.
[...] State University 3D Models from Still Photos » This Summary is from an article posted at Dusan Writer’s Metaverse on Sunday, February 03, 2008 [...]