2023 Vol.5
Digital Twin City
Digital Twins, Turing Tests and Urban Models
Abstract: Digital twins have become all the rage and are simply the latest stage in the process of using computers in the development of scientific theory and practice. If you go back to the 1920s, the term "model" meaning a "simplification of the real thing", or an "abstraction" was barely visible but once computers emerged, the idea of computer models first, but fast on their heels, models of many kinds gained momentum. In science, the notion of theory has now become almost interchangeable with the idea of model. In this short note, I will focus on defining digital twins in the context of computer or digital models, raising paradoxes and conundrums that pertain to the semantics dominating the field. After some brief discussion of definitions, I will ask the question "how do we define a good model" and then introduce variants of a "relaxed version" of Turing's famous test that simply asks the question "can you see the difference between the twin and the real thing". This is one of many open question pertaining to such tests but then, using applications from our own work on digital models in London, I suggest that the way forward is to develop many variants, many examples, many applications of digital models of the same place, thereby initiating comparisons and providing platforms for their integration. We imply that many rather than one model, one twin, thus provides a much richer context for informed prediction.
The Interactively Generative Planning and Governance Empowered by Digital Twins
Abstract: Since the 21st century, digital twins have entered the field of urban planning and governance, accelerating the process of urban perception and problem feedback, and forming a new interactive mechanism among time, space and people. This paper argues that the digital twin city faces the challenge of the complexity of the city. In order to meet this challenge, it redefines space from the point of view of human-centered immersive participatory, addressing the multi-dimensional extensions of the spaces, and establishing the spatial expression model of digital twin city and its calculation logic of upgrading and reducing dimensionality based on the model of spatial manifold. Then this paper discusses the interactively generative planning model empowered by digital twins. Taking people as main actors and adopting the parametric design of digital twins, it continuously adjusts real-time feedback of various planning parameters of the city, and thus builds an evolving digital twins' planning and governance system and its inherent policies.
The Driving Force, Functional Framework and Construction Path of Digital Twin Cities
Abstract: Under the background of the new normal with increasing constraints on the development of urban resources, environment, and physical space, digital technologies represented by digital twins are accelerating the digital transformation of cities, and carrying out system reconstruction, process reengineering, and capacity reshaping of urban economy, society, and ecology. The digital twin city has become the frontier direction and important practice of urban digital transformation, behind which there are four driving forces: transformation demand, digital technology, policy guidance and industry promotion. It also proposes a digital twin city development framework covering digital facilities, base platforms, scene construction, organizational mechanisms, standards and specifications, operational support, and security systems. On the basis of in-depth analysis of the challenges in four aspects of digital twin cities, this paper puts forward digital twin city planning strategies and development suggestions that meet the requirements of the country's urban digital transformation and development.
Digital Twins for Urban Planning: Lessons from the Past and Prospects
Abstract: The concept of digital twin, originated in the aviation manufacturing industry, was introduced into the urban domain in the late 2010s and is in the ascendant. The rapid development of city digital twins, on the one hand, is enabled by the rise of new data sources in cities and the rapid advancement of computing power (supply side). On the other hand, it reflects people's yearning for high-quality and sustainable urban life, and city managers' aspiration for efficient urban management and urban competitiveness (demand side). The superficial match between the supply side and the demand side explains the current hype of city digital twins. However, the application of digital twins in the urban field is fundamentally and systematically different from its application in engineering. Through a critical review of the early "smart city" movement and a brief overview of the recent city digital twin developments, this paper discusses the necessity and innovation of city digital twins from a non-technical perspective. Practical challenges for applying digital twins for urban planning are examined, with suggestions for future research provided.
The Scenario Iteration Logic for Constructing the Digital Twins City
Abstract: The concept of digital twins, since it was proposed, has continued to develop from spacecraft manufacture, industrial products, and electricity to urban science, and gradually rising to the national strategic level in various countries. With the advancement of related practical works, digital twins models are also developing and maturing in both theory and technology. However, due to the in-depth understanding of the digital twins for cities, practitioners and scholars gradually realize that it is not enough to build digital twin cities by mining various data, and the complexity of cities gives more weight to the data-based modeling and its interactive mechanism. Therefore, this paper argues that the construction of the operable-oriented digital twins city could start with the different needs—such as people, finances and materials—found in the city, but focus on limited items, limited goals and limited capabilities. In this way, it explores the "scenario system" with multiple temporal-spatial dimensions, builds the relationship with data and models with the "business process decision tree" in the scenarios, forms a "data-model ecosystem" in which the scenarios play a key role, and constructs the twin evolution mechanism of the urban ultra-complex system with the assistance of multi-modal large model technology. At the same time, this paper takes the construction of Shanghai Digital Twins City Identification System and Suzhou City Information Modeling Platform (CIM) as examples to show the exploration of the scenario iteration mechanism formed by the interaction between "business process" and "data-model", forming a city development process driven by independent iteration of scenarios, and finally evolving into an all-item, full-cycle, and fully-open digital twins city.
From Cultural Twinning to Technological Twinning to Digital Twinning: An Investigation of the Logic of Digital Twin Cities Based on the Macrohistorical Perspective
Abstract: Through the method of macrohistorical perspective, based on the dual viewpoints of cultural narrative and technological critique, the binary twin model and its governance mechanisms embedded within digital twin cities are analyzed. On one hand, from the perspective of conceptual archaeology, it is pointed out that digital twinning is a contemporary version of the complex interweaving of cultural twinning and technological twinning. On the other hand, it details how four types of capital - colonial, industrial, financial, and digital - shape different aspects of digital twin cities. It is precisely on the extended line of macrohistory that the construction of contemporary digital twin cities can be understood as the specific implementation of the twinning phenomenon in the national and capital domains. The technological system architecture and social governance logic of contemporary digital twin cities are summarized, with the aim of providing more thought for related research on digital twin cities.
Technology Innovation and Application of 3D GIS Basic Platform for Digital Twin Cities
Abstract: Nowadays, the digital twin city has become an important exploration direction for smart city construction or urban digital transformation in China. In the process of in-depth construction of digital twin cities, new requirements are put forward in data storage management, data processing and fusion, data query and analysis, and data visualization. Facing these new requirements, the GIS basic platform needs continuous innovation to support the construction of a spatiotemporal digital foundation. This paper discusses the new requirements of digital twin cities for geographic information technology, focusing on the progress of SuperMap 3D GIS basic platform technology in multi-dimensional and multi-scale data model construction, comprehensive data fusion, 3D spatial analysis and calculation, visualization capabilities, and its applications in related fields such as urban planning and management, digital park operation and maintenance management, and natural resources management. Finally, the application value and follow-up exploration direction of this technical method are summarized.