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Abstract
An important step in implementing geospatial digital twins is to enhance the expressiveness of virtual geographical scenes for the physical world. However, the existing virtual geographical scenes cannot quickly express the dynamically changing geographic environment for remote users due to the inefficient handling of modeling processes, user perception, and remote sharing. The research analysed the concept and characteristics of geospatial digital twins, and constructed the virtual geographical scene ontology, based on which we developed geographical spatiotemporal semantic rules and designed a dynamic annotation algorithm to enhance the representation of virtual geographical scenes. Finally, we investigated a real-time transmission method of panoramic video based on 5 G and used immersive virtual reality (IVR) to realize the user experience of remote immersion in geographical scenes. We selected a specific geographic environment containing multiple typical geographic entities to develop three prototype systems for experimental analyses. The results showed that the proposed method enabled users to view the virtual geographical scene on a VR device. The average latency for this process was 14.72 seconds. Compared with the virtual geographical scenes constructed by traditional methods, the experiments showed the proposed method advantageous in comprehensiveness, timeliness, and photorealism and abilities to enhance the user’s geographical scene perception.
Data and codes availability statement
The data and codes that support the findings of this study are available in figshare.com with the identifier https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25379368. The experiment was reviewed and approved by the university’s institutional review board (Approval No. SWJTU-2301- NSFC (098)). All participants provided written consent.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jinbin Zhang
Jinbin Zhang obtained his B.S. in GIS from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2021. He is currently a doctoral student at Southwest Jiaotong University, researching virtual geographic environments, geovisualization and 3D GIS. He played a key role in the writing and methodology, helping to determine the direction and framework of the research, and provided several important references.
Jun Zhu
Jun Zhu earned his M.S. in geodesy and survey engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in cartography and GIS from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. He’s now a Professor at Southwest Jiaotong University’s Faculty of Geosciences and Environmental Engineering, specializing in computer vision, 3D GIS, and virtual geographic environments. He provided a crucial dataset for this research and offered valuable suggestions on data analysis methods, ensuring the accuracy and completeness of the study.
Yuxuan Zhou
Yuxuan Zhou received the B.S. degree from Chengdu University of Information Technology in 2020. He is currently working toward the M.D. degree at Southwest Jiaotong University, researching virtual geographic environments, 3D GIS modeling. He wrote key code for this study.
Qing Zhu
Qing Zhu received the Ph.D. degree in railway engineering from North Jiaotong University in 1995. He’s now a Professor and the Director of Research Committee with Southwest Jiaotong University’s Faculty of Geosciences and Environmental Engineering, specializing photogrammetry, geographic information system, and virtual geographic environment. He provided technical support for this research, especially in software and programming, ensuring smooth and accurate data processing.
Jianlin Wu
Jianlin Wu obtained his B.S. from Lanzhou Jiaotong University in 2020. He is currently a doctoral student at Southwest Jiaotong University, researching 3D GIS and holographic visualization. He provided key feedback and revision suggestions during the paper writing process, enhancing the logical flow and readability of the paper.
Yukun Guo
Yunkun Guo received the B.S. degree in Chengdu University of Technology in 2017. He is currently a doctoral student at Southwest Jiaotong University, researching 3D GIS. He played a role in project management throughout the research process, ensuring the progress and quality of the research, and continuously provided encouragement and support to the team.
Pei Dang
Pei Dang obtained his B.S. in GIS from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2016 and an M.S. in survey engineering in 2022 from the same institution. He’s currently a Ph.D. candidate there, researching virtual geographic environments, spatial cognition, and GeoAI. He played a key role in the data collection and language embellishment.
Weilian Li
Weilian Li received his Ph.D. from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2020. Then, he finished his postdoc research stay in the Geoinformation Group at the University of Bonn in October 2023. He is currently working at Southwest Jiaotong University and has a strong interest in topics related to smart cities, disaster management, and digital twins. He provided valuable field investigation data and observations during the research process, offering empirical support for the study.
Heng Zhang
Heng Zhang received his Ph.D. from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2016. He is currently working at China Railway Design Corporation, specializing in 3D scene modeling. His primary contributions include guiding the methods and responding to expert comments.