The Virtual Geographic Environments: More than the Digital Twin of the Physical Geographical Environments

Abstract

With past more than 20 years of development, virtual geographic environments (VGE) had gradually matured and formed its own supporting theories and remarkable characteristics. During this period, the remarkable steps forwards of VGE were often inseparable from the promotion of new technologies. Recently, the term of digital twins has emerged and attracted researchers from the community of geographic information sciences to discuss what the digital twins of the physical geographic environments should be alike. This chapter focuses on discussing the conceptual connotations and typical characteristics of both virtual geographic environments and digital twins, analyzes the basic requirements for building digital twins of physical geographic environments, and summarizes whether VGE can match the framework of digital twins of physical geographic environments. The final conclusions of this chapter declare that: The concepts and framework ofVGE are essentially consistent with those of digital twins; The characteristics of VGE can absolutely meet the basic requirements of digital twins of physical geographic environments; What’s more, VGE has been more than a digital twin of the physical geographic environments, for instance, it can extensively fit well with the conceptual framework of metaverse of geographic environments which have eight characteristics including identity, friends, immersive, low friction, variety, anywhere, economy, civility.