Digital twin created of Hyderabad's 16th-Century Quli Qutb Shah Tombs: What is it?

In modern times, cultural heritage serves as a testament to our identity, history, and values. Despite its value being recognised worldwide, urbanisation has put it at risk. In a bid to preserve one such heritage, a reality tech firm has developed a digital twin of Hyderabad’s iconic Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah Tombs. The digital twin is a collection of pixels on a screen that mimics the surface and texture of a physical object, whereas the actual tomb is a tangible object. With the goal of improving the visitor experience and preserving the landmark, the digital replica of the historical tombs from the 16th century is awaited UNESCO World Heritage tag. Here’s all we know about the digital twin. How the digital twin was created Covering 106 acres, Quli Qutub Shah Tombs is a unique necropolis on the globe. It is one of about 50 historic sites in the nation that are awaiting designation as a World Heritage Site. Hexagon, a global reality technology company, created a 10.7 billion data point-rich twin of the site spanning 10,000 square metres by using a combination of fixed, mobile, and aerial digital equipment to capture images of the tomb from both inside and outside, according to NDTV. After this, the data captured over three days was merged to create the digital twin, said Navneet Mishra, senior vice president and head of Hexagon R&D India. The company created the digital depiction of the monument using cutting-edge technologies, such as reality capture, geospatial mapping, and 3D scanning, the report said. In the final phase, the company pieced together an actionable digital twin with rich data and a point-could mesh using advanced artificial intelligence tools. This allowed for real-time analytics, data-driven decision-making, visualisations, and simulations. The digital twin provides the opportunity to view the tomb from both inside and outside, from various perspectives, of the founder of Hyderabad and the fifth ruler of the Qutb Shahi dynasty that ruled the Golconda empire. Advancing smart cities for the future The digital twin of the famous tombs, according to Paolo Guglielmini, president and CEO of Hexagon, is part of a global initiative to digitally preserve cultural heritage sites. “Our work in Hyderabad demonstrates how forward-looking innovation and reality technologies can be used to protect our most valued connections to the past while advancing smart cities for our future,” he said, according to the news channel. Hexagon’s reality technology also enables the development of cities in an efficient way. Mishra told NDTV, “The data-richness of Hexagon’s digital reality will make it easy for governments, planners, and conservationists of smart cities to make data-driven decisions.” “Every data point is stored with geo-reference details and is very precise. You can simulate many things, how it will behave when it rains, when there is wind blowing, under the sun, when there is traffic, or 10 houses in the street. It lets you work with data, whether you are solving city problems, heritage challenges, or utility issues.” According to Telangana’s IT minister, D Sridhar Babu, the digital twin of Quli Qutb Shah Tombs is a proof-of-concept of the capabilities of the firm’s tech to create a smart city. “I am confident that using smart technologies to preserve, maintain, and restore our rich heritage is the right way forward for a smart city,” he said. “We have been speaking about digital twins for healthcare and precision medicine. But this is new and shows what is possible for smart cities context to make, model and recreate heritage sites. Digital twins can be used in many other contexts while retaining our focus on health care,” said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT Department during the unveiling ceremony, as per The Hindu. He added that company officials were asked to make the technology commercially available to the community in order to “create a courseware that will help train more people in learning and using the technology to further our knowledge.” Creating a digital twin of Shahjahanabad A digital twin of Shahjahanabad is being created across a spatio-temporal scale in order to support future conservation efforts, restore the city’s unique identity by creating cultural awareness, and serve as a model for future planning and development, according to The Conversation. Known as Old Delhi today, Shahjahanabad was the capital of the Mughal Empire when it was founded in 1648 CE. It is home to numerous Mughal architectural imprints, including the main mosque, Jama Masjid, and the Red Fort. It is currently, however, physically, socially, and economically in a condition of complete decay. Development pressures have resulted in the loss of important resources, architectural styles, and public amenities that formerly added to the area’s historic significance. The digital twin will be created using historical maps, survey plans, archive material, and geo-information technologies like photogrammetry. Spatial data from written documents, drawings, photos, and other media would also be used to fill in the gaps in cartographic sources. Additionally, the virtual three-dimensional (3D) model of the city will be built using some of these sources, according to the piece. Similar recent examples of virtual reconstruction include the Qatari city of Al-Zubarah (Ferwati and El Menshawy, 2021) and the creation of a virtual-reality application for the German town of Duisburg of 1566 CE (Tschirschwitz et al,. 2019). Preserving cultural heritage It is rightly said, “Preserving the heritage is promoting the future.” The United Nation’s inclusion of cultural heritage in Sustainable Development Goal 11, which attempts to “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage,” attests to its enormous socioeconomic and anthropological worth, as per The Conversation. Today, cultural heritage faces potential threats from urbanisation, which takes the form of fast population shifts and pressures, homogenisation, identity loss, and demolition, according to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). While it is true that housing and infrastructure upgrades are equally needed to improve living conditions in developing nations, caution is also necessary to ensure that this does not come at the expense of a culturally rich legacy. This is when digital twins come into the picture, as they can help identify the aspects of cultural heritage that have been lost to time and those that have survived and conserve them for future generations. Seeing the places and understanding their former shape, purpose, and context—as well as helping them reclaim their lost identities—are the primary reasons behind many of these efforts. With inputs from agencies