In the first blog of this series, Highland Park used Digital Twin + AI to bring the building facades closer to the real world.
In the second blog, the city applied the same thinking to the transportation corridors, using LiDAR, ArcGIS Pro, CityEngine, Terrain, Street imagery, and AI-assisted sign texture to make freeway corridors easier to understand in 3D.
The final story moves from the web scene into the field.
Utilities are some of the most important assets a city manages, but they are also among the hardest to understand in the real world. Water mains, sewer mains, devices, open channels, and 3D utility features are often buried, layered, or invisible during field coordination. On a desktop map, these assets may be clear to GIS specialists. On a job site, in a meeting, or during interdepartmental coordination, the same information can be harder to interpret.
The prototype explores how a configured Esri WebScene can be brought into a mobile augmented reality experience. The app lets users view utility layers in two modes: real-world AR for field-style viewing and tabletop AR for planning, meetings, and quick spatial understanding.
This is not about replacing survey, engineering design, or utility locating. It is about making the 3D utility context easier to see, discuss, and coordinate.
A digital twin becomes more valuable when it can travel.
Many city teams already work with web maps, web scenes, dashboards, and GIS layers. These tools are powerful, but they usually live on a screen. AR adds a different kind of access: it lets users bring the web scene into the physical space around them.
For this prototype, the app is configured with utilities sample data and can be reconfigured for other web scenes once the target web scene is ready. That makes the architecture reusable. The mobile app does not need to be rebuilt from scratch for every city or project. The web scene becomes the configurable mission source.
The app experience is intentionally simple:
The AR Mission is configured with layers including sewer mains, water mains, water devices, sewer devices, open-channel layers, and 3D utility layers. These are exactly the kinds of assets that benefit from visual context.
The mobile AR app uses Esri's ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Swift and Kotlin. This matters because the app is not a separate visualisation disconnected from the GIS system. It is built around the same web scene concept that GIS teams already understand.
For iOS, ArcGIS Maps SDK for Swift supports AR scene experiences that can display geographic content in augmented reality. For Android, the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Kotlin supports similar AR scene workflows. Together, these SDKs allow the mobile experience to serve both major mobile platforms while staying connected to Esri web scene content.
The design follows two useful AR patterns:
This two-mode structure is important because field coordination and planning coordination are different jobs. A field user may need to see how utility information relates to their physical location. A planner, engineer, or manager may need a compact city-scale view on a table before discussing a work area.
The app begins with a mission entry screen. Users can sign in or enter the configured mission depending on the authentication setup. This gives the city flexibility to support anonymous access for demonstration environments or authenticated access for controlled operational use.
The mission screen confirms the configured location and scene context. In the screenshots, the app identifies the AR Mission and indicates that the 3D global web scene is ready.
Once the mission opens, the app loads the configured web scene. The web scene is the source of the 3D GIS content: utility lines, devices, 3D layers, basemap context, and the surrounding city environment.
This design keeps the GIS data management workflow familiar. GIS teams can prepare and update the web scene in the Esri environment, and the mobile app can consume that configured scene.
In practical terms, the app becomes a reusable AR viewer for the city's prepared 3D GIS mission.
The user can choose between real-world AR and tabletop AR.
Real-world AR mode is designed for on-site viewing. It uses GPS and device orientation to position the scene relative to the physical environment. In this mode, users can see utility layers appearing in their camera view, with controls for heading and elevation adjustment.
Tabletop AR mode is designed for scaled review. The city scene appears as a compact model on a physical surface. Users can review a site, neighbourhood, or city-scale area, then discuss utility networks without being on-site.
This is valuable because not every coordination question happens in the field. Some happen in offices, council rooms, project meetings, or training sessions.
AR is only useful when the scene can be understood in context. The app includes controls for heading, elevation, and basemap visibility, allowing the user to tune the view.
Heading adjustments help orient the scene. Elevation controls help align the content vertically. Basemap opacity controls help the user decide how much map context should be visible behind or below the utility layers.
These controls may seem small, but they are central to AR usability. Field conditions are rarely perfect. Device sensors, GPS accuracy, indoor testing environments, and web scene elevation settings all influence how the AR scene appears.
The app includes a layer panel that lets users toggle utility layers on and off. This is important because utility scenes can become visually dense.
Layers include:
Layer control turns the AR scene from a static visual into an operational viewer. A user can simplify the scene, focus on one utility network, or compare 2D and 3D representations.
The tabletop mode includes focus options such as scene selection and device location, as well as scale options such as site, neighbourhood, and city extents.
This lets the user decide what kind of question they are answering. A site-scale view may support a specific project discussion. A neighbourhood-scale view may help identify network relationships. A city-scale view may support broader planning or executive review.
AR gives field users a way to see utility information in relation to their surroundings. This can help with orientation, coordination, and communication before work begins.
Again, AR should not be treated as a substitute for official utility locating or survey-grade positioning. Its strength lies in context: helping people understand what GIS identifies as nearby and how assets relate spatially.
Utility coordination often involves public works, GIS, engineering, planning, contractors, leadership, and sometimes the public. Each group may understand the same data differently.
A tabletop AR scene creates a shared visual reference. Instead of pointing to separate maps or reports, teams can gather around a single scaled 3D model and discuss the same utility network.
Because the app is driven by a configured web scene, the same mobile pattern can support other cities, missions, and datasets. Once the web scene is ready, the app configuration can reference it and present it through the same AR experience.
This reduces the need for one-off applications and supports a more scalable digital twin strategy.
Not every stakeholder is comfortable navigating a full GIS application. AR can lower that barrier by making the scene more visual and direct. Users can tap, move, rotate, and inspect the scene in a way that feels closer to the physical world.
Series 1 and Series 2 focused on building richer 3D content. Series 3 asks the next question: how do people actually use that content when decisions are being made?
The answer is not one interface. It is a family of interfaces: web scenes for desktop review, apps for public engagement, and AR experiences for field and tabletop coordination.
Digital twins are often described as city-scale models. But their real value appears when people can use them in the moments when decisions are made.
Highland Park's first two stories showed how AI can help make buildings and transportation corridors more recognisable, contextual, and useful.
AR Mission shows the next step: integrating a 3D utility scene into a mobile experience to support field understanding, tabletop coordination, and everyday conversations.
That is the direction digital twins need to go.
Not just more data - More usable data.
Not just better models - Better decisions in the hands of the people doing the work.