Browsing by Author "Da Silva, GS"

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    Integration of digital twins and virtual reality for data visualisation.
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-11) Da Silva, GS; Kruger, K; Basson, AH; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis considers an integration of digital twins (DTs) and virtual reality (VR) for enhancing the data driven decision-making process. An integrated DT and VR system is designed according to an available complex DT system design framework. The Six Layer Architecture for Digital Twins with Aggregation (SLADTA) is used for the internal architecture of the DTs in the system. A custom developed VR application is used to visualise the information using VR equipment. The Facilities Management (FM) Division at Stellenbosch University serves as the chosen case study context for the evaluation. The energy usage information for various facilities of FM is visualised in VR. The DT method of transferring information to VR is compared to a method that does not make use of DTs. Three experiments are used to evaluate the two implementation methods to allow for an adequate comparison of the two methods. The experiments focus on, respectively, latency, computer resource utilisation (in terms of RAM and CPU usage), and reconfigurability when a new feature is to be added to the system. The experiment results indicate that the DT method has lower latencies, the two methods have similar computational resource needs, and the non-DT method is more reconfigurable than the DT method. However, the DT method offers other advantages such as allowing for two VR experiences to visualise the same information, or allowing for a different visualisation tool, other than VR, to be integrated seamlessly into the system. The DT method also allows for a distributed operation functionality that reduces the computational load required from a single hardware device. The Non-DT method does not offer such advantages. The thesis concludes that the integration of DTs and VR for data visualisation is possible and is favourable for a system that will not only use VR as a data visualisation means.