UrbanSense : integrating human perception into urban digital twin – a campus-scale case study of perceived conviviality and urban pollution

Given the rapid urbanization currently underway worldwide, Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) have emerged as powerful tools for simulating, monitoring, and planning cities. However, most UDTs remain primarily technical, focusing on physical infrastructures, sensors, and environmental data, while overlooking citizens’ subjective perceptions. This article introduces a human-centric framework integrating perception data into standardized 3D city models. The methodology was tested on Sart-Tilman Campus, University of Liège (Belgium), where pedestrian routes were segmented and assessed through a field survey based on ten perceptual factors. Results were normalized, aggregated into perception scores, and processed through a dedicated pipeline before being visualized in a custom web platform, UrbanSense (CesiumJS). Findings demonstrate that subjective data can be systematically integrated into UDTs, supporting participatory planning and more inclusive urban analysis, and highlighting the feasibility of standardized, human-centric UDTs bridging technical modeling and citizens’ lived experiences.