Digital Twin of UNT Campus

Digital Twin of UNT Discovery Park Campus

Current Students: Pranav Moses, PhD Student

Status: Current

This project's goal is to create an accurate, interactive Digital Twin (DT) of the university campus, delivered through a multi-platform VR experience that enhances campus tours, improves safety preparedness, and supports seamless navigation for students, staff, and visitors. It includes following objectives:

Objective 1: Enhance Campus Tours Through Immersive Virtual Experiences
- Develop a high-fidelity 3D digital twin of major campus buildings, landmarks, and facilities
- Create multi-platform VR access (webVR, PC VR, mobile VR, and head-mounted displays)
- Implement guided tour modes featuring voice-overs, AI-driven virtual tour guides, or scenario-based narratives.
- Support accessibility features, including subtitles, audio descriptions, and simplified navigation modes.

Objective 2: Improve Campus Safety Preparedness Through Simulation-Based Training
- Integrate emergency response scenarios (evacuations, severe weather, fire drills, shelter-in-place procedures)in the DT.
- Include analytics and performance tracking to measure user proficiency, time-to-exit
- Enable multi-user simulations for coordinated training sessions with campus security, staff, or students.

Objective 3: Improve Campus Navigation and Wayfinding
- Integrate dynamic wayfinding tools that help users navigate to classrooms, offices
- Implement indoor and outdoor navigation paths using the Digital Twin and real-world mapping data.
- Provide accessibility-specific routes, including ramps, elevators, and accessible building entrances.
- Enable AR/VR hybrid navigation that can connect the digital twin to real-world campus maps and mobile devices.
- Develop customizable user journeys (e.g., new student orientation, visitor parking to office routes, event-nav).
- Optimize performance across devices (VR headsets, desktop, mobile) without compromising visual fidelity.


Digital Twin of Entrance at UNT discorvery park (Proposal)	Digital Twin of UNT discovery park

Digital Twin of UNT Discovery Park Campus (outside)	Digital Twin of UNT Discovery Park Campus (Inside)

Publications

Summitt, A., Bhatt, B.J., Sharma, S.,"Emergency Assistive Mobile Application with Digital Twin for Real-Time 3D Navigation in Indoor Environments", Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Management and Applications (SERA 2025), Las Vegas, USA, May 29-31, 2025.
Sharma, S, Jerripothula, S., Devreaux, P., "An Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environment of a University Campus for performing Virtual Campus Evacuation drills and Tours for Campus Safety", Proceedings of IEEE/ACM International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS 2015), Atlanta, Georgia, USA,ISBN: 978-1-4673-7646-4, page 84-89, DOI: 10.1109/CTS.2015.7210404, June 01-05, 2015.
Sharma, S., Pesaladinne R., "Spatial Analysis and Visual Communication of Emergency Information through Augmented Reality", Proceedings of the IS&T International Symposium on Electronic Imaging (EI 2024) in the Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality Conference, DOI: 10.2352/J.ImagingSci.Technol.2023.67.6.060401, January 21-25, 2024.