“This is like a living, breathing kind of content in that it has the archives in it, it has current and then it has future.”
– Carolyn Bennett, Deputy Director of GIS, Boston Planning and Development Agency
Planners in Boston, Chattanooga, and other cities have created digital twins — virtual, editable 3D replicas of the urban environment and systems. Buildings, trees, transit, traffic, light and shadows can be modeled to archive the current landscape and simulate the effects of proposed changes. Drawing on vast stores of data and continual maintenance that keeps them evolving with their real-life counterparts, these digital twins can be made available not only to planners and city officials, but also for the public to interact with and contribute to.
In Texas, the city of Galveston is using the same technology to study the impacts of climate change and extreme coastal weather, as well as mitigation measures. A brief overview from Texas A&M Today is linked in the fifth paragraph.
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