The DIDYMOS-XR project consortium is proud to announce the successful conclusion of its research activities advancing the state of the art on digital twins and extended reality. The project ran from January 2023 to December 2025, and created innovative and cost-effective methods for digital twin capture and development. To celebrate the conclusion of the project we want to look back at some of the most interesting findings, and highlight a few key outputs.
The building blocks of a responsible digital twin
One key article from the DIDYMOS-XR consortium explained the methodologies used for scene understanding and digital recreation of a real-life scene, detailing examples of how these can serve as the basis for advanced XR applications. You can read the article in full here.
New NeRF methodologies
To capture and recreate large scenes digitally, Neural Radiance Field models are used. These models take multiple images and recreate a 3D model. i2CAT researchers have developed a new type of NeRF model which is able to generate accurate 3D models based on lesser input than previously needed, dramatically enhancing efforts towards large-scale 3D reconstruction. CERTH researchers developed NeRF-based methods for precise camera localisation. Read about their methodologies in two articles, here and here.
SLAM advancements
Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping algorithms were mainly used as part of the human-in-the-loop mapping use case, where the digital twin of a warehouse was created through both autonomous robot capture and human-operated AR device capture. Researchers at the American University of Beirut and idealworkshave advanced SLAM by leveraging the power of augmented reality (AR) alongside humans-in-the-loop, and you can read their full conference article here.
User studies: how should we assess user satisfaction with XR?
As large-scale digital twins and XR applications expand their capabilities so too must the methods used to assess their value. Our project’s university partners from the Technical University of Berlin and Hochschule Hamm-Lippstadt led our efforts, defining how to evaluate XR applications that are based in digital twins. You can read their conclusions here. These methods were used to validate project use cases, and the tourism use case results have been published here.
Connecting with the community
We considered it important to co-create digital twins with the people who would be most affected by the results, including locals, industry experts, city managers and planners, tourism sector professionals, and software developers. Two of our use case partners Neapolis and FIWARE actively engaged the local communities that were the subjects of our digital twins, Vilanova i la Geltru in Spain and Etteln in Germany. Residents took part in the testing and validation of the XR applications to help us improve the final product and ensure that it met their needs and expectations. You can read more here about how locals engaged with one of the final rounds of testing.
Knowledge sharing with the industry
DIDYMOS-XR consortium members have been active on the conference scene, presenting their findings at Smart City Expo World Congress, UNITE 2025, and UNITED XR, to name a few. You can read more about our outreach activities in the DIDYMOS-XR blog series.
Our YouTube page will soon be updated with new videos of the digital twins. Follow us to see what all the DIDYMOS-XR innovations look like when put together!
For more information on the DIDYMOS-XR project please visit our website, which hosts publications, policy recommendations, datasets, and many other resources. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn, or contact us via email at didymos-xr-office@joanneum.at
