A Standards Roadmap for Digital twins

I think you're right, the key for me is always setting the standards at the right level. So to extend Mark's analogy of collaborating on the rules and then competing on the game, I want to know the 'performance' of the ball, but let it be made however the market decides. I want to set the size of the pitch, and know how it performs, but not the specific material the pitch is made from (although I myself would always prefer a ryegrass mix because of its hardiness).

So to set the National Digital Twin standards at the right level we need to be highly specific in areas like 'passing', but for things like 'goals' (we need a few key ones sure) we need more than anything a framework for creating more goals. So that as the capability of the industry grows new benefits can be realised. I've missed a lot out, but I hope you see where I'm going with this Dan. How specific in what areas do you think we should be?

To be honest Henry it varies depending on the problems that we (collectively) are trying to solve. 

For example, the roadmap recommends a code of practice (set of recommendations) that describes suitable data formats for capturing information to be interpreted.  To use your analogy, its suggesting where someone might get their cleats from. 

• Could you find an alternative supplier instead of using one of recommended suppliers? Sure.
• Is it easier (i.e. more convenient) to choose from a pre-approved list? Yes, very much so.
• If you only chose players who used those suppliers, would you be confident they had decent shoes? Yes.

It also includes recommendations for guides that are designed up upskill and support organizations (push not pull), as well as specifications to support the consistent production of specific outputs. 

Generally, I believe we should specify touch points in great detail (inputs and outputs) but allow freedom between to innovate processes in-between.  Hopefully this roadmap achieves that mix, and recommends the right solutions for each of the problems (gaps) it is looking to address. ☺️

Nice quote on @Mark Enzer 's concise desciption of rule of game.

I can visualise the importance of standards and co-created rules: Similar as building parts of the roads together, and drawing lines by some type of negotiation -> and then each player can travel with our own vihichels on the roads, to get to the place we want to get.

I am very interested to have a look at the roadmap, but for some reasons, I got the following message. @DRossiter87 Any idea or signpost?

For the 

Hi @Steven Zhang, I tested it just now and it works okay for me.  If you go to Resources it should be first under what's new.  Let me know if you are still having trouble

On 10/11/2020 at 13:35, DRossiter87 said:

The roadmap is available here.

Hi @DRossiter87 Thanks for the quick reply. For me the hyper-link in your post is still not working for me.

For the resource page, I am not able to see the roadmap easily.

Frankly speaking- It is a suggestion for you to update the link, I seems not have the permission to access it. And I can't see the said document. Can you make it more specific? If you want the document to be seen. Thanks! 

Thanks for @Alexandra Robasto's help!

The roadmap(draft) can now be accessed, both 1) visiable to me on resource area as screenshot; and 2) can be downloaded as an attached (as you have revised) .

Thanks a lot for the efficient work! 

That might explain why it had so few downloads immediately on release. Thanks for the catch @Steven Zhang

I am curious to see how this unfolds over time.

While supportive of the use of standards for facilitating interoperability and for supporting the interleaving of cumulative innovation, I am also wary of the proliferation of standards and a tendency for technical implementations of schemas etc. to be quite heavy and difficult to use in practise.

For my case, involving urban analysis pertaining to roads, buildings, blocks, neighbourhoods, cities: I was initially excited about schemas such as CityGML but found these too complex to setup and use for ongoing research and experimentation purposes.

This leads me to my question / suggestion: is there a way to structure these emerging standards in such as way that they are equally friendly to 'light-weight' schemas and simple use-cases as to heavy-duty schemas used by larger software vendors? Such that it becomes possible to only buy-into the level of complexity needed for accomplishing the task at hand?

4 hours ago, garethsimons said:

This leads me to my question / suggestion: is there a way to structure these emerging standards in such as way that they are equally friendly to 'light-weight' schemas and simple use-cases as to heavy-duty schemas used by larger software vendors? Such that it becomes possible to only buy-into the level of complexity needed for accomplishing the task at hand?

Thanks Gareth, I agree. 

Perhaps the most important recommendation (in my eyes) within the roadmap is a standard to describe how to capture use cases in a machine-interpretable manner and the publication of each use cases as independent publications/standards.  My expectation/hope is exactly what you suggest.  If an organization is only interested in supporting a single use case, then they would have access to the classes/properties/relations related to that use case only.  While there might be a bigger schema in the background, these disparate publications should facilitate a shallower dive.

just logged in after getting the email mailshot, as observed both links fail in the mail. Once I logged in and then clicked the link I came here. still getting access denied on the abridged version so I will navigate to resources.

Great to see this by the way.

Found two references to the document, one in DT Resources and one in Community resources. Both are the same so cannot seem to find the full vs the abridged. All are 12 pages long.

Where can we find the "Long" version of the report?

I am also unable to access the long version of the report

Hi all, I've spoken with the relevant people and they will be publishing a complete report that you'll be able to have access to. This is slightly different to the long version here, perhaps we could call it the long'er' version. Anyway, that will be coming out soon and I'll keep you posted.