I think it’s clear that ART+COM’s TerraVision demo came before Keyhole’s EarthViewer app, even if I personally wasn’t aware of it. I’m willing to believe that some former SGI people knew about it and were excited about it. So is it possible it inspired people? Yes. But if so they never mentioned it to me. Whereas they did mention “Powers of 10,” "Snow Crash," and other sources. Personally, I was already inspired since 1993 after I wrote a novel containing the idea (but barely anyone has seen that).

As to the question of whether there was any infringement, that’s been settled. None, according to US court system. ART+COM’s patent was invalidated in 2017, meaning there can be no further claims.