A global leader in reality technology,  Sweden-headquartered Hexagon,  has unveiled a digital twin of the Qutub Shahi Tombs.
This digital twin of the 16th-century heritage site is a proof-of-concept of Hexagon's Reality Technology for Smart Cities capabilities.
Paolo Guglielmini, President and CEO of Hexagon, presented the digital twin of the historical site to the Principal Secretary of I&C & IT Departments, Jayesh Ranjan,saying: “The creation of this digital twin of the iconic Qutub Shahi Tombs is a step towards our vision of digitally safeguarding cultural heritage sites across the globe. Our work in Hyderabad demonstrates how forward-looking innovation and reality technologies can be used to protect our most valued connections to the past while advancing smart cities for our future.”
Hexagon brought together its suite of cutting-edge software and hardware technologies, including 3D scanning, geospatial mapping, and reality capture to generate 10.7 billion data points for the creation of the digital representation of the landmark. The team utilized award-winning devices including Leica BLK2FLY, an autonomous flying drone equipped with a LiDAR scanner, along with the BLK2GO, and RTC 360, capable of capturing an astounding 2 million points per second. The GS18i complemented these devices for geo-referencing the point cloud.
In the final stage, Hexagon’s digital-reality platform HxDR applied advanced AI solutions to stitch together a point-cloud mesh and data-rich actionable digital twin. The new digital version of the historic site enables data-driven decision-making, real-time analytics, visualisations and simulations.
The IT Minister Govt. of Telangana, D Sridhar Babu said: “Telangana believes in making Hyderabad a city of the future. To do that, we also need to be a responsible custodian of the rich heritage of the state. We are delighted that Hexagon India R&D, based in our very own city and being the largest R&D centre of the company, has developed a data-rich digital twin of the Qutub Shahi tombs. I am confident that using smart technologies to preserve, maintain and restore our rich heritage is the right way forward for a smart city."
Navaneet Mishra, Senior Vice President and Head, Hexagon R&D India, said, "The Qutub Shahi Tombs Digital Twin project is a fully functional proof-of-concept of Hexagon’s Digital Heritage for Smart Cities, demonstrating how we can help preserve the rich heritage of our country. The data-richness of Hexagon’s digital reality will make it easy for governments, planners, and conservationists of smart-cities to make data-driven decisions. We are excited to have developed this for Telangana and look forward to more such possibilities across India.”
Hexagon is the global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies. It has approximately 24,500 employees in 50 countries
Hexagon’s R&D Centre in India is the single largest R&D centre for the company globally. More than 2,000 talented engineers and developers create innovation from this centre that powers Hexagon's products and solutions.
The Centre delivers innovations and creative solutions for all business lines of Hexagon, including Asset Lifecycle Intelligence, Autonomous Solutions, Geosystems, Manufacturing Intelligence, and Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial. It also hosts dedicated service teams for the global implementation of Hexagon’s products.