Developing Campus Digital Twin with Integrated 3D Point Clouds and 3D Modeling Techniques

Exploring digital twin technology through the creation of 3D digital model offers a powerful tool for enhancing real-time monitoring, predictive analysis, and optimization of complex systems. The purpose of this study is to develop a 3D digital model of our building campus as the first step towards developing a digital twin of the university. In this study, we develop a digital model with integrated 3D point clouds and 3D modeling techniques. By scanning the physical model of the campus, data in the form of point clouds is extracted and unnecessary noise is deleted using Autodesk Recap Pro. These point clouds are used as a benchmark to ensure the 3D models created using Blender are as accurate as possible to the physical model. After successfully creating the digital model, several features/interactions are implemented using Unity to mimic the physical model, thus developing the digital twin. The digital twin of the campus will be used to develop a virtual tour of the campus. We concluded that the 3D digital model of the campus was successfully developed, despite the time-consuming nature of the process. We hope that this study serves as a reference to optimize and enhance digital twin development in the future.