The adoption and deployment of Digital Twins is on an upward trajectory. Their underlying technology has advanced to provide extremely high-fidelity twins with capabilities for urban planning and management, traffic flow control and planning, and environmental management including energy use. This technology is rapidly evolving and is increasingly overlapping into the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Digital Twin technology has been deployed within various domains such as manufacturing, transportation, and Smart Cities. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are being used across many industries, enabling users to perform geographic-centric analysis with 2D and 3D visualizations that are based on cartographic maps.

The combination of both Digital Twin and GIS technologies offers the potential for a multitude of possibilities where true-to-life virtual assets of real-world objects, processes, or environments in conjunction with digitized geographic maps and models form the basis for spatially intelligent solutions.

The first three chapters of this white paper are intended for a broad GIS and Digital Twin audience, including those with both business and technical interests. The final three chapters are relevant to technical staff and managers who are currently working with 3D Digital Twin and GIS technologies; we detail practical examples showing the interoperability between these workflows.