Hexagon’s Reality Technology Revives Historical Landmarks: The Digital Twin of Qutub Shahi Tombs

Hexagon, a global leader in reality technology, has unveiled a data-rich digital twin of the Qutub Shahi Tombs, showcasing its commitment to advancing smart city technologies and preserving historic landmarks through digital innovation. The digital twin, a proof-of-concept, demonstrates Hexagon’s capabilities in reality technology for smart cities.

The presentation ceremony, held at the Tombs’ lawns, saw Paolo Guglielmini, President and CEO of Hexagon, presenting the digital twin to the Principal Secretary of I&C & IT Departments, Shri Jayesh Ranjan, amidst dignitaries from various government departments and the media.

Paolo Guglielmini stated, “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 utilized its cutting-edge software and hardware technologies, including 3D scanning, geospatial mapping, and reality capture, to generate over 10.7 billion data points for the digital representation of the landmark. Award-winning devices such as the Leica BLK2FLY, an autonomous flying drone with a LiDAR scanner, along with the BLK2GO and RTC 360, were used to capture detailed and precise data in minutes. 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 create a data-rich actionable digital twin. The new digital version of the historic site enables data-driven decision-making, real-time analytics, visualizations, and simulations.

Hon’ble IT Minister D Sridhar Babu, Govt. of Telangana, expressed his delight, stating, “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 center of the company, has developed a data-rich digital twin of the Qutub Shahi tombs.”

Navaneet Mishra, Senior Vice President and Head, Hexagon R&D India, commented, “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’s initiative not only showcases technological innovation but also emphasizes the importance of preserving cultural heritage using advanced digital solutions, paving the way for a smarter and more connected future.