Moscow Digital Twin wins ComNews Awards

Moscow Digital Twin has been declared the winner of ComNews Awards. Best Digital Economy Solutions. The project from Moscow topped the Best Digital Twin Solution category.

This year, the event organizers got over 100 applications in 19 categories. The panel of experts evaluated the project for scalability and replicability, transparency, the level of innovation and complexity, how effective they were for the city or the country.

“Moscow Digital Twin is one of the key IT projects in the Moscow governance system: it helps the city authorities make decisions based on accurate and true data about all the processes and facilities, project the city’s development and control key projects’ status in real time. A photogrammetric model of the entire Moscow with 3D models of future buildings will enable experts to tell beforehand how well a new development will fit the existing architecture, how to provide transport accessibility for certain areas, etc. The system makes us able to manage the city as a coherent whole to make it easy and comfortable for its people to live in every day,” said the Department of Information Technologies Press Service staff.

Moscow Digital Twin is a municipal project based on a photogrammetric model of Moscow (a 3D map created from photographs made at various angles). It’s a comprehensive city governance platform supporting decision-making in urban planning, safety, transport and environment, as well as in other areas of urban life. Over 12 million aerial photos a year are needed to keep the photogrammetric model up to date. AI is used to improve the quality of source photos used in the 3D model: it helps sharpen the images and cleans them of some extraneous elements like cars.

The virtual map covers over 2,500 square kilometers of Moscow. The model includes panoramas of Moscow roads and streets totaling over 13,000 kilometers. The map consists of more than 5,000 thematic layers with different types of information, from building permits to organizations occupying the buildings. All the data is updated regularly.

This year, Moscow Digital Twin got some new functions. The model has been augmented with dynamic layers that make it possible to monitor works like construction waste removal or building demolition in real time. The surveillance camera projection service that utilizes AI technologies, is also available in test mode. Now, you can link the video feed from some of the city’s surveillance cameras to the 3D model in order to see the coverage and the blind spots, which is important for safety and control of important municipal projects.

We’ve been using Moscow Digital Twin for the city governance since 2019; the archived panoramas have data going back to 2013. It’s a proprietary development by the Moscow Government that uses free open source software.

The project won an award from the International Society of City and Regional Planners and the Digital Summits 2021 award in the Best Smart City IT Solution category.