Hyderabad: Hexagon, a global leader in reality technology, presented a data-rich digital twin of the Qutb Shahi Tombs to the government of Telangana on Tuesday, February 13.
This digital twin of the 16th-century heritage site is a proof-of-concept of Hexagon’s Reality Technology for Smart Cities capabilities. Hexagon is committed to advancing smart city technologies and supporting the preservation of historic landmarks through advanced digital innovation.
During a ceremony at the Tombs’ lawns, President and CEO of Hexagon, Paolo Guglielmini, presented the data-rich digital twin of the historical site to the Principal Secretary of the I&C and IT Departments, Shri Jayesh Ranjan. The event was attended by dignitaries from the departments of IT, Industries & Commerce, Urban Development, and Culture & Heritage, as well as members of the media.
Paolo commented, “The creation of this digital twin of the iconic Qutb 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 utilised award-winning devices, including the 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 a data-rich, actionable digital twin. The new digital version of the historic site enables data-driven decision-making, real-time analytics, visualisations, and simulations.
IT Minister D Sridhar Babu said, “Telangana believes in making Hyderabad a city of the future. To do that, we also need to be responsible custodians 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 center of the company, has developed a data-rich digital twin of the Qtub 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.”
Commenting on the initiative, Senior Vice President and Head Hexagon R&D India Navaneet Mishra said, “The Qutb 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.”
About Hexagon
Hexagon is the global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensors, software, and autonomous technologies. They are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, quality, and safety across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, the public sector, and mobility applications.
By shaping production and people-related ecosystems, Hexagon’s technology is aiming to become increasingly connected and autonomous, ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.
Hexagon’s R&D Center in India
Hexagon’s R&D Center in India is the single largest R&D center for the company globally. More than 2,000 talented engineers and developers create innovation from this center, which powers Hexagon’s products and solutions.
Hexagon’s R&D Center delivers innovations and creative solutions for all business lines of Hexagon, including asset lifecycle intelligence, autonomous solutions, geosystems, manufacturing intelligence, safety, infrastructure, and geospatial. It also hosts dedicated service teams for the global implementation of Hexagon’s products.
