Tencent Mou Lei: Real-world three-dimensional connection of industrial Internet and consumer Internet

Real 3D is shaping a new ecology of data, technology, and applications.

In order to build a unified space base, the linkage between regulatory agencies and enterprises has become more frequent, and cross-field enterprise cooperation is becoming the norm. As a deep participant in the field of spatial information, Tencent plays an assistant role in the industry chain from data ecology, technology ecology to application ecology.

"The real-world 3D China solution recently released by Tencent is an open ecosystem." Mou Lei, general manager of Tencent's location service, introduced to Taibo.com: "At the data collection layer and data processing layer, we provide algorithms to professional institutions such as DSI surveying and mapping. Open capabilities such as, computing power, etc. At the application layer, more companies and people are provided with richer services."

"Reefs" still exist under the blue ocean

The real three-dimensional China construction and its accompanying application scenarios are like a blue ocean. Just when you sail into the blue ocean, you still need to be wary of underwater "reefs."

"There is no problem with real three-dimensional small scenes, but when it reaches a few hundred square kilometers or thousands of square kilometers, quantitative changes cause qualitative changes." According to industry insiders, there are still technical bottlenecks in the construction of specific projects at this stage.

As pointed out by Liu Xianlin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and honorary dean of the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, “You cannot rely on a large amount of manpower and capital investment, and rely on stupid resolution and the number of servers to solve problems. We must pay attention to big data and cloud computing. , Cloud storage, Internet of Things and other new technologies."

Tencent is just one of the entrants with new technological capabilities.

Cao Dongqing, Product Director of Tencent's Location Services, introduced at the 2021 Real-View 3D China Innovation Summit that Real-View 3D is a digital virtual space that reflects and expresses human production, life and ecological space in a true, three-dimensional, and sequential manner.

To construct such a digital virtual space, it is necessary to realize from abstraction to reality, from plane to three-dimensional, from static to time series, from element and scale to entity and precision, from human understanding to human-computer compatible understanding, from land The six-point transformation from the surface to the full-space expression.

The real-time 3D overlay market needs to explore more real-time and extensive perception, faster and lower-cost updates, more diversified data fusion, and deeper applications. To this end, Tencent has joined forces with the general wisdom to jointly launch a real-world 3D solution to provide industries and application objects with autonomous and controllable geographic entity generation algorithms, massive computing power infrastructure, and industry application landing platforms.

Mou Lei said that from the data collection layer, data processing layer to the application layer, each layer of the real 3D construction requires huge computing power to support. At the data collection layer, achievements such as surveying and mapping, remote sensing, and satellite photography all involve the support and optimization of end-of-the-line computing power; at the data processing layer, massive, multi-source unstructured data requires huge computing power for structured processing; at the application layer, Massive 3D models also need to rely on algorithms and computing power to support applications in all walks of life.

"The collection of 3D data has the business characteristics of peaks and troughs, so many surveying and mapping units may encounter a problem when processing data-the computing power is not scalable." Mou Lei gave an example: "When a task comes down, the amount of data will change. A short-term outbreak requires a large amount of computing power. However, the amount of data processing in daily work is not large, and it will show a relatively low state. If the surveying and mapping unit invests a higher cost on hardware such as servers, it is not economically reasonable. The option. Based on Tencent’s computing power support, it can provide more reasonable solutions for demanding units."

"Tencent joins the ranks of real-world 3D construction, hoping to promote the reduction of technology, cost and application barriers, so that applications can grow on a better data base."

A new ecology that combines dynamic and static

"To upgrade from the physical space constructed by the real 3D to the urban digital twin, it is necessary to combine the two networks of dynamic twin and static twin."

Based on the experience of serving billions of people, Internet companies have achieved a very good ecology in the "movement". On the “static” level of Real-View 3D, a lot of data is in the hands of the regulatory authorities. In Mou Lei's view, it is impossible to build a truly complete digital twin with the strength of a single unit or enterprise.

Mou Lei split it into data ecology, technology ecology and application ecology, and further explained:

In the data ecology, the data of surveying and mapping institutes and other units can construct a complete geographic entity, but dynamic data including human vehicle data, business flow data, etc., need to be provided by enterprises and ensure the long-term operation of the digital twin ecosystem.

In the technology ecology, the Surveying and Mapping Institute and geographic information companies already have a lot of innovative capabilities, but because the digital twin has too many technical points, more units and companies are required to make continuous breakthroughs based on their core capabilities, and continue to reduce costs and use thresholds, and empower Other partners.

In the application ecology, if there is no secondary distribution, economic flow cannot be formed, and long-term investment cannot be attracted by enterprises. Financial investment alone is not a long-term solution. It requires enterprise applications and C-end applications to bring greater economic volume and nourish the ecological environment of the entire industry.

This requires close cooperation between government and enterprise sides. Under the premise of ensuring data security and controllability, the government side has the willingness and motivation to open data at all levels, and the enterprise side has the motivation to provide service support, so that dynamic and static integration can be achieved, triggering a virtuous cycle of economic efficiency, and raising service levels to a higher level level.

Based on this premise, the real 3D China solution released by Tencent this time is still an open ecosystem.

Mou Lei introduced that the capabilities of the data acquisition layer and data processing layer in the solution will be open to units and enterprises in the traditional surveying and mapping and geo-information fields, and help them by lowering the technical threshold of algorithms and computing power. The application layer is open to more companies and the general public, helping more partners find rich application opportunities based on real-world 3D.

Tencent hopes to work with partners in the surveying, mapping and geo-information industry to jointly build a "full and lively" data layer, a "massive computing power, enhanced foundation" computing power layer, and a "development and interconnection" application layer to help the construction of Digital China.

Open up imagination

While Internet-related technologies empower real-world 3D construction, real-world 3D also provides a broader imagination for the development of the consumer Internet.

As a multi-end ecological enterprise of China Unicom, Tencent's service ecosystem covers more than one billion users. In the process of joining the real-world 3D construction, Tencent saw another path connecting the industrial Internet and the consumer Internet.

"The construction of Real 3D and the development of the Internet industry show a spiraling upward trend, and the two promote each other." Mou Lei said: "Tencent is both the builder and the beneficiary of Real 3D."

"In the industrial Internet, Tencent provides more technical support such as algorithms and computing power, and plays an assistant role. In the consumer Internet, we connect more C-end users through mobile phone maps and other applications." Mou Lei Introduction: "Driven by the power of real-world three-dimensional construction, we can make the data chassis richer and provide consumers with more diverse forms of services at a lower cost."

"The digital world of the future will be a mapping of the real three-dimensional physical world."

Mou Lei expressed part of her vision based on real-world 3D future applications: "Take map applications as an example. At this stage, mobile phone maps are still dominated by planes, but based on real-world 3D space, we may be able to restore and reproduce in the digital world. Explore the real world."

This coincides with the meta-universe concept of Great Fire.

"The biggest difference between the meta universe and the game is that it is a state where the real world and the virtual world are mixed. From a recent point of view, some companies under the meta universe concept are more focused on creating interactive forms of scenes such as games and VR. You can use the virtual space constructed based on the real three-dimensional scene." Mou Lei said, "In the long run, in addition to games and VR, the digital space constructed with the real three-dimensional scene can support applications in all walks of life."

Mou Lei believes that when the virtual world evolves from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, the bearer terminal will continue to evolve, and the form of maps presented on different terminals such as vehicle-mounted terminals, VR headsets and portable projection devices will also naturally change. This will be the process of gradual maturation of the three-dimensional space ecology.

Tencent has been exploring the use of geographic space to better realize information visualization to help people better understand the digital world. To this end, Tencent has successively opened many components that combine information visualization and map interfaces, and will continue to advance corresponding work along the data collection layer, engine service capability layer, and application layer.

"At this stage, the processing of 3D data is still very computationally intensive and requires very high hardware equipment. It is difficult for us to make a complete digital twin city run on each mobile terminal. These technical problems are still waiting to be overcome. "

"Only when the real-world three-dimensional geo-spatial base is mixed with applications from all walks of life, can we explore the earth without leaving home, and can give birth to a larger economy." Mou Lei said: "This open ecology has a huge imagination. Space also requires the joint construction of the government, enterprises and more participants."