If in case you are hearing Digital Twin Technology and Building Information Modelling they may sound the same. Even if you look for information in Wikipedia they may sound similar at first glance.
Business Information Modelling is understood as the process that involves management and generation of the digital representation of functional and physical characteristics related to the places.
Digital Twins have been referred to the digital replicas of any processes, assets and systems which may be put to use for various purposes.
Therefore it can be understood that Building information Modelling using structured and consistent data management can be taken to be the key for generating such a form of digital building performance of which can be studied by various building simulation tools for different kinds of boundary conditions. It may be said that comprehensive BIM that helps in integrating data of all project partners can be considered as one of the examples which explains how Digital twin technology is applied in the AEC industry. But it is clear that BIM is not to be considered as the key to generating any Digital Twin or the way of exploiting Digital Twin Technology.
Digital Twin can be explained as the exact representation of the building that can be represented in the form of digital data. The easiest form of representing such information is through the use of a 3D model. But there is another way of representation which is done using a database that has all the information on the happenings during the phase of construction of the building.
Digital Twins have been termed as powerful a mastermind who helps in driving performance and innovation. It can be considered to be the most talented product technician who consists of highly advanced analytical, monitoring and predictive capabilities which may stand at the fingerprints.
The technologies which belong to the connected era are allowing the assets to live in a virtual world like digital twins. Digital twins are being considered to have the capability of changing dynamically in real-time just like the change in the state of physical objects. They have sensors which help in collecting the data on various impacts of the external environment that may occur on various assets which helps in keeping the models updated and also generating an alert as and when required to ensure complete security of the project.
But the fact is in the futuristic world importance of BIM cannot be ignored as the problems related to Digital Twins can still be sorted only by BIM in real life.