Creating a Digital Twin with 3D Geospatial Data, ArcGIS Pro, and Python

Digital twins are quickly becoming an important data management and representation tool for a wide variety of applications. In the geospatial world, digital twins continue to receive attention for the Unique aspects that geospatial content can bring to a digital twin representation such as urban planning.
If you want to learn more about digital twins and how to create one using 3D Geospatial Data, geographic information system software and python programming, this video is for you!
In this video I’ll teach you how to create a digital twin that is based on a three-dimensional representation of a building using ArcGIS Pro software. The color of the building will change based on the temperature that is incorporated from real time data from the National Weather Service in the United States using a Python script.
Before getting into the tutorial, I’ll also first cover a few important background concepts about working with 3D data.
To achieve the tutorial end goal, I'll show you how you can build your specific 3D GIS skill sets each step of the way that include:
Create 3D objects from 2D objects
Shape the 3D object using Lidar data
Add textures to 3D objects
Connect the 3D object to a real-time weather feed using Python (ArcPy)
It was particularly exciting for me to develop this video and I found that there were so many ideas I was not able to include in this video but I'll provide you with some ideas that you might want to follow up based on your own creativity about the exciting world of digital twins.
It is also important to mention that no Python programming experience is required to follow the steps in this video as I provide you with a Python code file that you can load directly into the Arcgis Pro Python window. However, if you do have existing python coding skills, I will also provide a quick walkthrough of the code itself that you could use for a basis for building your own digital twins.
Video Chapters:
0:00:00 Beginning
0:00:45 What are Digital Twins?
0:01:59 Video Scope
0:02:33 Skills Taught Overview
0:03:52 Background Concept: Lidar
0:04:30 Background Concept: Multipatch Features
0:05:12 Background Concept: Vertical Coordinate Systems
0:05:44 Tutorial Introduction and Overview
0:06:10 Tutorial Hands On Start
0:06:13 Task 1 - Step 1: Create a new ArcGIS Pro project
0:06:56 Task 1 - Step 2: Add the tutorial datasets to your map
0:08:10 Task 2: Create a 3D Multipatch Object from 2D Polygons Overview
0:08:32 Task 2 - Step 1: Create Scene View
0:09:31 Task 2 - Step 2: Create Blank Multipatch Feature Class
0:10:33 Task 2 - Step 3: Copy Footprints into Multipatch
0:11:22 Task 2 - Step 4: Modify Multipatch using Lidar
0:12:27 Task 2 - Step 5: Apply Textures
0:15:07 Task 3: Connect Python Script into Scene to Update 3D Multipatch Object in Real Time.
0:16:36 Task 4 - Step 1: Export Scene Image
0:17:45 Python Code Walkthrough
0:22:39 Conclusion
Links and resources used in the video:
Datasets, Code, Instructions (free download): gisfordisaster...
Esri Digital Twins www.esri.com/e...
Esri - www.esri.com/e...
ArcGIS Pro: www.esri.com/e...
21-day ArcGIS Pro trial - www.esri.com/e...
ArcGIS for Personal Use - www.esri.com/e...
Lidar - oceanservice.n...
Lidar data source: maps.monroecou...
Multipatch - pro.arcgis.com...
Vertical Coordinate System - pro.arcgis.com...
NOAA weather feeds - w1.weather.gov...
If you liked this and other videos on the geographic information science channel, please like these videos, leave comments, or subscribe to this channel so you can stay informed of new videos.
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Also, feel free to contact me if you have any questions, I love hearing from the RUclips community.
Thanks for stopping by!
Brian Tomaszewski, Ph.D.
@bangeobrian
gisfordisasterm...
/ brian-tomaszewski-452b...

[@arunaram1317]

I sir,ur class is mind blowing.I just want to ask if indian real time monitoring websites can be used in the script too? for same arc gis pro software. And the as the feed changes in the website, the colour changes for a specific time or throughout? The building which u have taken here,is an airport? bcoz the noaa website also shows the name?so should we open the specific name of building(bank,temple,etc)in the website and then only connect using python.Can u pls reply asap.I am doing a research..It will be very helpful.

[@ssmith4299]

Hey brian, what does the sym = l.symbology line do in your python code?

[@stepscourse]

what If we import Revit model with rooms directly and use the same concept to detect each room data to help us evaluate our HvAC system , can we assign virual sensor for each room and get full data according to the building location ?

[@GIScienceRIT]

Yes I think that should work if you have a way to access the sensor using python or something why don't you give it a try and then post your results here to share with others? Thank you

[@srinivasan523]

👏👌

[@w.w.8951]

Hi Brian, you used point cloud data from LiDAR as reference to create the multipatch objects; I wonder, can we also use the 3D images from drones to create the multipatch objects? Which way is better? Thanks.

[@GIScienceRIT]

Thank you for your comment! I honestly have never worked with 3D images from a drone but I imagine if they can give you some kind of detail that can help to sketch out the multipatch like the way I showed the lighter and the video then I would say give it a try if anything see if you can compare both methods especially depending on the level of detail you're trying to create in your multipatch thank you for your comment

[@user-ih3uw5yo4f]

finally find a method to link dt with arcgis😂 it is so hard

[@GIScienceRIT]

Thank you!