Cities are becoming smarter thanks to the infusion of new-age technologies. Digital Twin, a digital representation of physical objects, is transforming how we operate, manage, and make our cities better.
A session on discussing the future possibilities through urban digital twin convened at the first day of Geo Connect Asia 2024 shed light on its use cases.
Moderated by Dr. Victor Khoo, Director, Survey & Geomatics, Singapore Land Authority talked about the importance of the urban digital twins saying, “digital twin will help any city or country to reach the next level in urban planning, while easing the operations of agencies, and integrating different departments into one, leading to better interoperability.”
“We want to address two points in this panel: Developing a robust digital twin for a city and how can we integrate different technologies into one Digital Twin model.”
He reiterated that data is fundamental to Digital Twin, a point that was later echoed by esteemed panellists.
“In simple terms, digital twin is the virtual representation of what we see every day,” said Daryl Lim, Regional Business Manager, Leica Geosystems part of Hexagon. “The key behind this is spatial information. If this spatial data is not accurate, there is no use of any digital replica.
He emphasised that without data accuracy, it would be just another photo or video without any purpose.
“Location is a very important part of the Digital Twin. We need to know where we are, not only in 2D but in 3D as well which adds another complex layer to the whole collection process. However, with the advent of AI, we can be more assured of high-quality data, processing, and analysis for digital twin use,” he added.
Increased use cases of the digital twin is seen as a trend in Europe, with Czech Republic capital Prague developing a digital twin to monitor and augment resilience throughout the city.
Lucie Kovarikova, GIS Project Coordinator Prague Institute of Planning and Development noted, “In Europe, people think digital twin is just a digital replica of the physical world, but it’s much more than that. It consists of spatial analysis, behavioural patterns, and climate configurations. It is more of a ‘dynamic twin’ than anything else.”
Infrastructure consulting firm AECOM is undertaking the digital twin to amplify its next-gen construction information.
Thomson Lai, Managing Director, Digital, AECOM said, “We are living in a 3D city, and we found a few practical use cases through it.”
He explained that through the advent of Digital Twin the company has found great design projects for the future stakeholders.
“We can always reimagine what the future would look like,” he added.
“On top of this we can also predict and simulate natural disasters to increase our chances to keep everything safe,” Thomson reiterated.
Chan Yue Chun, Head of Spatial Data Office, Development Bureau The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region explained the importance of Digital Twin for new-age cities. “We need the Digital Twin to offer some solution or insights to help, manage, and defend against the calamities going forward.”
“Breaking the silos is the first step. You cannot find all the data at one stop for digital twin, you need to integrate different kinds of data into one, and AI is presenting itself as the perfect catalyst to provide good semantic data fast and reliably.”
