Web-based agricultural infrastructure digital twin system integrated with GIS and BIM concepts

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are currently used in agriculture to represent various farming-related geographical information. While prior research has highlighted the potential of GIS in visualizing agricultural data, it still faces limitations in terms of model quality, interaction capabilities, and representing detailed topographic information, particularly in hydrological structures like culverts, irrigation systems, and drainage facilities. A method integrating Building Information Modeling (BIM) concepts with GIS is proposed to overcome these limitations. To achieve this, information on agricultural infrastructure in beneficiary areas was collected through field surveys and photos captured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Subsequently, a digital twin model was created with various characteristics and information about agricultural hydraulic structures such as land shape, sluices, and channels of the entire beneficiary area of the test bed (Heungeop reservoir in the City of Wonju, Gangwon Province, South Korea) based on this information. A web-based geographic information visualization platform (Cesium) was integrated with the concepts of BIM to check the information associated with the selected 3D agricultural infrastructure models in a pop-up window. The proposed method overcomes the limitations of existing GIS information representation by enabling a detailed depiction of the agricultural environment. It allows for an intuitive understanding of information such as structural features, details of the material, history of maintenance, year of completion, etc., on agricultural infrastructure through a pop-up window, providing a foundation for research on efficient management and planning.