VRIH丨【Zhihan Lv from Uppsala University in Sweden】building the metaverse by digital twins at all scales, state, relation

Research Background

As the Chinese ancient philosopher Lao Tzu said in Tao Te Ching, “The Dao begets the One; the One begets two; two beget three; and three beget the myriad things”. This states the logic and succession in which Tao produces all things. It means that everything is a process grows from a small beginning into a mighty, from simple to complex. The original intention of meta is transcendence, and here the meaning of meta in “Metaverse” is Tao, which is the origin of all things in the universe. The construction of Metaverse employs Digital Twins to completely twin the real world into the virtual space. Through real-time communication between Digital Twins and their analogues in the real world, Metaverse realizes the same state of the virtual space as the real world, thus constructing a digital space that combines reality with virtual.

Digital Twins are digital expression of physical entities or processes based on data connection, which is a virtual “clone” created in accordance with real-world entities. Creating a Digital Twins allows us to investigate the whole life cycle of physical substances or processes, and also allows us to seamlessly transmit the data between the virtual world and the real world, realizing real-time and bidirectional information feedback. The flexibility initially shown by Digital Twins is reflected in their high adaptability to various fields.

Digital Twins are closely related to the Metaverse and present various forms of expression. First, Uchuu, the largest and truest cosmological simulation system to date, has been successfully developed, reaching three quarters of the scale of observable universe and covering 13.8 billion years of cosmic historical evolution. This not only provides a powerful tool for realizing Digital Twins at the cosmic scale, but also provides a broader reference in time and space for the construction of the Metaverse. In addition, in quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement makes two quantum particles connected. When one of them is affected, no matter where the other one is, it will be immediately sensed, just like realizing the communication between the reality and the virtual world in Metaverse. Initially, the communication of this information state was similar to a kind of instantaneous transfer, but the latest research shows that this transfer may not be instantaneous, but a continuous process. At a certain moment in the process, two particles will be in the exact same state. It can be understood as the complete consistency between the real world and the virtual world in the Metaverse. From this point of view, quantum entanglement is the realization of a kind of Digital Twins, but also a manifestation of Metaverse.

Digital Twins should get rid of the shackles of the existing field like aerospace, industrial, medical, urban development, so as to realize the gradual transition of two-way expansion. For one thing, it is necessary to realize the fusion of the whole universe and Digital Twins at the macroscopic level. For another, the combination of molecular and Digital Twins should also be realized, breaking through the existing scale. Interdisciplinary and cross-domain acquisition equipment provides a wide range of sources for information collection of Digital Twins systems. From molecules, cells, tissues, organs and structures of the human body under microscopes with different precision, to the city streets and regional appearance under panorama camera, to the earth under earth observation satellites, to star planets, solar system and space under telescopes with different scales. As shown in Figure 1, this is a gradual change from microscopic to macroscopic. It includes a complete evolutionary hierarchy from subatomic, neutrino, quantum dots to the Sun-Earth system and the entire universe, and Digital Twins are further endowed with flexibility by investigation from mesoscale to two relative scales.

Results and Significance

Compared with Virtual Reality, Digital Twins is more concerned with the synchronization of data and interaction between virtual and real worlds. Metaverse is a larger and more complex system compared with Digital Twin. Digital Twins originates from the industrialization of complex product development, and is moving towards urbanization and globalization; while Metaverse originates from game and entertainment industry that builds human-human interaction, and is moving from globalization to urbanization and industrialization. Although Metaverse and Digital Twins focus on the connection and interaction between the real world and the virtual world, the essential difference between the two is that Metaverse is directly oriented towards people, while Digital Twins is oriented towards things. The concept of Metaverse represents the development direction of the next generation of the Internet, and with the blessing of Digital Twins, the two major technology systems will complement each other and shine in the fourth industrial revolution in the future.

This evolutionary process bears on and relies on the following important characteristics.

1．The first is “Weak Distinction”, which is reflected in the fact that some concepts are not independent of each other. For example, virtual reality and Digital Twins provide conceptual and technological support to each other and rely on each other.

2．The second is “Sub-evolution”, the emergence of new technologies depends on the combination of old technologies and new demands. Visualization has evolved from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, and from good-looking and realistic as the goal to easy-to-use visual analysis and prediction; Virtual Reality combines computer vision technology and the latest hardware to evolve into Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Extended Reality.

3．The third is “Mutual Technical Assistance”, different technologies support each other to evolve. The Internet of Things provides dynamics for Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence provides intelligence for Virtual Reality, making Virtual Reality evolve into Digital Twins; computer vision enables Virtual Reality and the real environment to integrate and evolve into Augmented Reality.

4．The fourth is “Pan-domain Application”, which is embodied in the extensive application of Virtual Reality and Digital Twins in multi-form, multi-scale and multi-fields. The application of Virtual Reality is omnipotent, from gaseous to liquid and solid, from microscopic three-dimensional molecules to macroscopic three-dimensional solar system. Even phenomena such as flames and wind can be visualized interactively with virtual reality technology, but these phenomena cannot evolve into Digital Twins, so in Metaverse, they can only be simulated rather than real mapping. Virtual Reality and Digital Twins are in great demand in the hottest energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.

5. The fifth is “Soft Quantitative Change and Hard Qualitative Change”. The quantity of software can only be counted as the accumulation of quantity, and the evolution of hardware will bring about qualitative changes.

6. The sixth is “Reincarnation”, just as virtual reality is constantly integrating new technologies during the downturn, now virtual reality has become an effective technological system to construct Digital Twins and Metaverse. From the point of software, the virtual community became popular in 2006 due to the popularity of Second life, and then evolved into the current hot Metaverse by continuously integrating new technologies during the trough of more than ten years. The virtual community and Metaverse place the same emphasis on the virtual interaction between people. In terms of hardware, the early Virtual Reality device CAVE cost a lot of money to provide immersion. Later, when the cost of Virtual Reality equipment represented by Virtual Reality glasses decreased, the economic threshold for users was lowered, and the first year of Virtual Reality was ushered in the popularization of Virtual Reality. When the majority of users accept Virtual Reality, the demand for multi-modal immersion makes devices like CAVE begin to be re-emphasized.

Considering the above-mentioned characteristics, Digital Twins is being supplemented and promoted by emerging technologies, which continuously optimizes its development route and gradually enriches its connotation.

From the previous part of the paper, it can be seen that whether it is solid to liquid, or macroscopic and microscopic, the construction of sensors not only determines the digital expression of physical products to a large extent, but also is the key to the realization of Digital Twins and Metaverse. In the future, the research and development of new sensors will be particularly imperative and crucial. Diversity and flexibility features should be further taken as the focus of the next generation of sensor manufacturing. Simultaneously, it is also the biggest challenge at present, which determines the mode and performance of virtual-real scene interaction and information exchange. Through the mutual embedding and compatibility of some auxiliary technologies and Digital Twins systems, starting from the data, it realizes a new ecological and wider Metaverse under the second reality.

At the same time, there are several aspects that should be the focus of future development, including the combination of multi-domain cutting-edge knowledge, real-time information transfer and model building, versatility and others. Digital Twins builds virtual objects of physical entities in a brand-new digital way. A variety of sensor devices provide a convenient way for data collection, and simultaneously form a special Internet of Things system. Digital Twins, Internet of Things, Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and other emerging technologies have converged to create a more mature research and development system. Making use of the gradual transition and development, it truly realizes the flexible Digital Twins from macroscopic to microscopic and from solid to liquid, thus constructing the real Metaverse virtual world.