Digital Twins for Virtual Cities

An approach I had not seen, but we had used a simplistic SimCity like model for thinking about interaction in groups.

 Cities Using Digital Twins Like SimCity for Policymakers

Bloomberg CityLab, Linda Poon, April 5, 2022

Cities like Orlando, FL, and Singapore are using digital twins to generate virtual models of themselves, in order to simulate the effects of potential new policies or infrastructure projects that can inform real-world decision-making. For example, the Orlando Economic Partnership and gaming company Unity have developed a three-dimensional (3D) model of the region that the city can show to potential investors as it attempts to expand as a technology hub. Meanwhile, the Virtual Singapore model incorporates over 3 million street-level and 160,000 aerial images, plus billions of 3D data points, exceeding 100 terabytes of raw data. Singapore Land Authority's Victor Khoo said the model differentiates between individual elements, making it easier to test its responses to different conditions in various simulations.  ... '

Could You Run your Business as a Sim Game?

The overall idea here was pitched to us, especially the supply chain aspects of such a sim.  Since we were already doing related analytics, you could see how such a system could mimic, diagnose and propose solutions for the real world.  In particular to mimic and address unusual conditions.  We thought there was a place to include gamification of the system's reaction to that.    But there was considerable funding required to make it work, and we were not ready for that, so we said no.   Apparently, according to the article it never got a real client.  Note the health systems example, could that be useful today?     Worth a thought.

Go read this incredible history of the SimCity studio’s forgotten business games division  Maxis Business Simulations was strange, ambitious, and doomed  .... 

By Adi Robertson  @thedextriarchy  ...  in TheVerge. ... 

Digital Twins for Urban Planning

Reminds me of the urban/city planning games like SimCity.   And then also the Agent Models we used to construct simulations of very complex country spaces.  The Digital Twin idea allows us to further specify the details of the participants,  which was hard in the past methods.   But are we aiming to optimize or just explore?

Digital Twins Give Urban Planners Virtual Edge
By Financial Times in CACM

Showing the interrelationships of municipal activities and the data they generate.
Digital twins give a city's planners, policymakers, resource managers, asset owners, and  
Digital twins—virtual simulations of cities—give urban planners, policymakers, resource managers, asset owners, and citizens the advantage of more dynamic tools and information, which can benefit new construction and traffic management, and provide tools for residents to explore the effects of planned projects.

One example is Glasgow, Scotland's Future City project: the initiative's tools offer citizen-accessible data on sustainability overlaid on interactive maps, customized dashboards with widgets on environmental conditions, and data on seasonal food availability.

Meanwhile, Cambridge University's National Digital Twin Project created a U.K. network of city-scale digital twins, with guiding principles that prioritize trust, transparency, social value, ownership, responsibility, and security.

Neil Thompson at engineering company Atkins Global said, "Digital twins offer new opportunities for sustainability and wellbeing—from a physical and a psychological perspective." ..... "

Designing Games

There is value in having game developers aid in designing interaction with business problems.

The Sims’ Creator Shares His Secrets
“If I was going to teach somebody videogame design from scratch, where would I start?”

That’s how Will Wright, the mastermind behind gaming’s most indelible fantasies, has embarked on an epic quest of his own: to help budding game developers transform their ideas into reality.

The Sims creator has joined MasterClass, the popular education app where extraordinary talents (director Ron Howard, writer Margaret Atwood, chef Alice Waters) teach the finer points of their crafts.

“I felt a little…what’s the word…overestimated, or humbled” by being invited into the MasterClass fold, Wright tells us.

But he certainly has the stature. From the groundbreaking SimCity to the spacefaring Spore, Wright has long been one of the biggest names in game development. What fellow MasterClass teacher Martin Scorsese is to crime films, Wright is to simulation gaming.

Wright spent more than six months distilling his decades of experience into a series of videos. Through 21 lessons and a detailed workbook, he covers everything from the fundamentals of game design to the importance of prototyping and playtesting.

“I really want this class to be focused on aspiring or even very experienced designers,” Wright says. “For aspiring game designers, I think it would be a good starting point to get off on the right mind-set.” .... "

Urban Future Simulation

Will SimCity type simulations help us build the cities of the future?  Inspired by SimCity?   See my previous writings about doing this in the enterprise.  In Nextweb:

"... A whole new (simulated) world ... Cities are complex systems. Increasingly, scientists studying cities have gone from thinking about “cities as machines”, to approaching “cities as organisms”. Viewing cities as complex, adaptive organisms – similar to natural systems like termite mounds or slime mould colonies – allows us to gain unique insights into their inner workings. Here’s how.

Complex organisms are characterised by individual units that can be driven by a small number of simple rules. As these relatively simple things live and behave, the culmination of all their individual interactions and behaviours generate more widespread aggregate phenomena. For example, the beautiful and complex patterns made by flocking birds are not organised by a leader. They come about because each bird follows some very simple rules about how close to get to each other, which direction to fly in, and how to avoid predators.  " ...  ' 

City Building Games. In the Enterprise.

I mention this not because I am a Sim City game player, but because I was asked several times to figure out how I could build something similar to model the enterprise.

Our own enterprise had a long history of having simulation games to train new hires, and people that were changing jobs to those that needed more strategic understanding.   These systems started with the simplest text interactions.  And evolved to very visual industrial sims.   With the warning that these games were rarely accurately predictive.  Or included enough context.  

Here Ars Technica looks at the history of city building games, not too different in goals and limitations.  Does anyone have input?  Will an IOT world allow us to attach such models to the real world?  That has been mentioned for more focused games, like the supply chain 'Beer game'.   Making them more accurate and real time?

New Sim City

A new version of SimCity is coming out tomorrow to considerable enthusiasm.  SimCity opened the eyes of a number of executives to the use of simulation when it first came out in 1989.  I had several contact me asking if we simulate the entire enterprise using the same methods.   The enthusiasm had to be calmed down some, but the simulation form of analytics was never the same again.  A version of the system that simulated a health care system was ultimately used internally.  Look forward to looking at the new version.

SimCity and Facebook

I have had an interest in SimCity since its early days.  Executives came to us soon after its launch to ask if we could produce a similar simulation for the entire enterprise.  At the very least for training, and potentially for constructing predictive simulations of how the entire enterprise would work under new conditions.  We explored those ideas, and it ultimately led to some very creative analytics.   So it was of interest to me that SimCity will now also exist as a game on Facebook.  Will this create further new opportunities? Worth exploring.