Open Geospatial Data Integration in Game Engine for Urban Digital Twin Applications
Loading...
Access rights
openAccess
publishedVersion
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
This publication is imported from Aalto University research portal.
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
Other link related to publication (opens in new window)
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
Other link related to publication (opens in new window)
Date
2023-08
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
22
Series
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, Volume 12, issue 8
Abstract
Increasing interest has recently been shown towards the digital twins of cities. These urban digital twins utilize 3D city models together with other data sources, such as open data, which can be accessed, e.g., through application programming interfaces (APIs). A large amount of open geospatial data is already available through various open data portals and APIs, such as REST and MQTT. Game engines, on the other hand, have been seen as highly potential platforms for urban digital twins, with recent development increasing the useability of geospatial data in game engines. This study explores the possibilities of game engines for urban digital twins by integrating and visualizing API-based open geospatial datasets with a 3D city model data set in a game engine environment. Three open data integration approaches are demonstrated, and the performance of these approaches is tested for urban digital twins. Based on the results, modern game engines offer a great platform for creating urban digital twin applications; however, some problems and limitations must be overcome before the use of geospatial data in game engines becomes feasible on a larger scale.Description
Funding Information: This research was funded by The City of Helsinki Innovation Fund project “Helsinki Smart Digital Twin 2025”, the Academy of Finland (AoF) through the “Road Distress Mapping Combining Expertise of Sensors and Point Cloud Processing, Surveying and Road Engineering” project (decisions 323783, 323752, and 323750), the Academy of Finland project Profi5 “Autonomous systems” (No. 326246), the European Regional Development Fund (grant number A77489), and the European Union’s Digital Europe Programme under grant agreement (No. 101083680). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Keywords
3D city modeling, 3D data visualization, digital twin, game engine, geospatial, open data, spatial data integration
Other note
Citation
Rantanen, T, Julin, A, Virtanen, J P, Hyyppä, H & Vaaja, M T 2023, ' Open Geospatial Data Integration in Game Engine for Urban Digital Twin Applications ', ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, vol. 12, no. 8, 310 . https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi12080310