Shanghai, Apr 7 (UNI) In a highly ambitious AI venture, Chinese scientists have created a hyper realistic full-on-interaction based virtual twin of China’s financial capital Shanghai for real-time policing of the metropolis.
A kind of digital simulator, this “virtual Shanghai”, featuring an accuracy of 3cm (1.2 inches) enables officers to navigate every street, scan interior layouts of skyscrapers and even access real-time data such as property occupancy records – all through a mobile terminal, according to the South China Morning Post.
The AI generated city has complete interaction with every nook and cranny being explorable, thus allowing for total immersion and complete police monitoring in real time.
Developed by the Shanghai Surveying and Mapping Institute and the Ministry of Natural Resources’ key lab for megacity data analytics, the system combines airborne laser scans, street-level lidar (light detection and ranging), and AI-powered 3D modelling to recreate the city down to individual bedrooms and fire hydrants.
The AI rendered recreation of Shanghai allows patrol officers to “enter” buildings virtually, view floor plans, tenant registries and utility lines – a capability that blurs the line between physical and digital realms, according to the project team led by government engineer Zeng Lingfang in a peer-reviewed paper published this month in the Chinese-language Journal of Geomatics.
According to Zeng and her colleagues, during emergencies, the metropolitan police headquarters can overlay live surveillance feeds, vehicle movements and heat maps onto the virtual city, orchestrating responses with surgical precision.
As per researchers, every alley, flat, and even manhole cover is mirrored, with the “geospatial digital base” stitching together petabytes of data.
To recreate Shanghai’s twin with total accuracy, drones and vehicles mapped tens of thousands of high-rises, while backpack-mounted sensors catalogued subway tunnels and underground utilities, among other areas inaccessible to vehicles.
The AI algorithms parse (the process of transforming data from one format to another) countless lidar points to isolate lamp posts, CCTV cameras and even post boxes as interactive 3D objects, and then automatically identify “dark corners”, or areas not covered by sensors, for the attention of police officers.
Real-time inputs – from traffic cams to social media – are projected onto virtual roads, creating a living replica with movie-like smoothness.
Developed by using Unreal Engine, (a graphic design system used in gaming) the virtual Shanghai looks and feels like a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ game, but the police model tolerates no artistic licence, as a misplaced staircase could doom a Swat team operation.

UNI ANV RN