Digital Twins and Extended Reality: Opportunities and Challenges of Integrated Applications (2nd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce this Special Issue of Drones on “Digital Twins and Extended Reality: Opportunities and Challenges of Integrated Applications (2nd Edition)”. 

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry and the digital heritage domain are both benefiting from augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) revolutions. Architectural representation, along with advanced tools and techniques of digital visualization, enables users to increase the informative value of digital models.

Researchers and architects are increasingly capable of devising complex scenarios, characterized by buildings of high historical–cultural value, along with historical and modern infrastructure, archaeological sites, and museums, and they have directed their resources towards innovative processes, such as scan-to-BIM, BIM projects, HBIM projects, BIM-to-FEA, CoSim, BEM, InfraBIM, to be able to digitize and transform simple point clouds (3D survey data) into informative digital models.

Within this context, interoperability and data sharing become key factors for developing digital models oriented towards different purposes and uses, such as restoration, building site design, energy and structural analysis, cost evaluation, valorisation, knowledge sharing, and virtual representation.

On the other hand, these innovative forms of representation present low levels of interactivity and immersion. The digitisation of built structures, whether modern or ancient, requires a specific cognitive approach that aims to create a faithful and accurate representation of geometries. The aim in so doing is to capture specific levels of detail and accuracy (LOD-LOA), as well as the morphological and constructive characteristics of each element, according to the final purpose of the digital twin (DT).

Therefore, acquiring quantitative and qualitative data relevant to the management of complex scenarios using DT integrated with VR and AR can improve the use of 3D digital models. Users who may benefit from these applications range from professionals involved in the life cycle of the building to those imagining new forms of virtual tourism.

Within this framework, the use of drones (indoor and outdoor) can provide additional support in documentation activities and data interpretation. More specifically, drones can support the survey of those parts of buildings or sites that are not always easily accessible or inspectable (e.g., collapsed parts of a building due to earthquakes or simply roof or tall buildings challenging to access). Further, drones can provide solid support to developing a DT of the recorded objects or sites, allowing the development of 2D measured drawings and 3D models obtained either by integrating aerial data with those obtainable using ground survey instruments or simply by using UAV to survey and represent built environments.

Additionally, the resulting model can be implemented and updated during the various phases of the maintenance/restoration/reuse of a building or a site, becoming fundamental to the control and simulation of activities and acting as a reference for all the different actors involved in site conservation and management, ranging from surveyors and archaeologists to architects, conservators, engineers, and plant engineers.

Accordingly, digital representation—acquired either by photogrammetry or LiDAR—can be used for dissemination and communication. Within this context, VR and AR play a key role. Virtual and augmented experiences allow museums, cultural institutions, and archaeological sites to propose new forms of virtual–visual storytelling (VVS), allowing virtual tourists (who cannot access the site) to raise their awareness remotely.

Consequently, we invite the submission of articles dealing with innovative approaches and new perspectives, as well as practical applications, addressed to a broad range of professionals working in the fields of documentation, surveying, representation, digitisation, visualisation, interpretation, and simulation of complex scenarios.

Dr. Daniela Oreni
Dr. Fabrizio Banfi
Dr. Davide Mezzino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• UAVs digital twin XR-MR-AR-VR scan-to-BIM—BIM projects
• HBIM projects
• BIM-to-FEA
• CoSim
• BEM
• InfraBIM conservation
• management and dissemination of cultural built heritage fault diagnosis energy, structural analysis, and costs evaluation virtual museum
• virtual–visual storytelling drone-based and drone-supported solutions

• Digital Twins and Extended Reality: Opportunities and Challenges of Integrated Applications in Drones (10 articles)