Visualization Techniques and Tools for Developing Digital Twins of Ecosystems: State-of-the-Art and Selection

A digital twin (DT) is a real-time digital copy of a physical entity. The interest in DTs has been an increasing trend in recent years in academia as well as industry, which includes ecosystems. DTs of ecosystems replicate the composition, behaviour, and functionality of real ecosystems, providing several advantages. With the highlighted importance of DTs in ecosystems, selecting the appropriate visualization techniques and tools becomes crucial.Visualization techniques play an important role in DT systems for presenting the digital representation of the physical system and for supporting users to effectively explore the information of DTs. During the past decades, a large volume of work has been conducted in the context of scientific visualization; however, no overview exists that summarizes visualization techniques and tools of DTs of ecosystems. Therefore, this paper aims to fill this gap.First, a systematic literature review is conducted to consolidate data types, visualization techniques, and tools that are used for DTs and ecosystems. To structure the consolidated visualization techniques the domains of application are identified. Requirements and challenges for DTs are identified similarly to assess the suitability of each visualization tool. Second, a selection tool is constructed using the results of the review such that a user can quickly assess what visualization technique and tool to select. The approach is applied to a use case.