into xplane?Seems like that would be the easy way to populate cities with real looking buildings..

Great idea & intentions.Ah, all my work investigating this finally of use!

• Possible legal hurdles, in that you'd at least want to get the author's permission before using.

• Known technical issues - the sketchup format uses multiple texture files, so to get it looking fine in xplane, you'll need to reapply the textures using a single file. But it would save a heap of time, with the basic model already built, or copying it at least.
• But I sound like Tom Kyler here - Blender really is better, after the hurdle!

Over at x-pilot I once sought a team of volunteers to do a single city, with 20 or so of us, it could be done in a couple of weeks, even easier now with decent autogen, with only the main sights needing concentrated effort. The offer is still OPEN!Similarly with the autogen regions, it wouldn't take much for a team to do localised versions. All it takes is volunteers and a bit of organisation

Heh, I was just looking at that as well when someone pointed to to OSM. OSM looks very bare in comparison at this stage for what you are thinking though. Legal issues were the first to pop to mind but others have got around it by releasing the tool and not the content, like tileproxy. It's up to you to get the content, albeit it is automated and not inconvenient. I guess a tool could exist that pulled down scenery and auto converted it and placed it in your scenery folder.

Your second and third sentence is my thought exactly...

What are "G" warehouse buildings?Bob

"Yo, G, we need warehouse buildings!"O.K., maybe not.

What are "G" warehouse buildings?Bob

Google 3d buildings that people have done for much of the world. For instance-go to Detroit and almost every important office building is there in 3dhttp://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/