🌐 The geomatics department plays a key role in the digital transformation of municipal territory.

As the guardian of spatial data, it acts as a bridge between the physical world and information systems, providing the visual and technical foundations for planning and management.

With the arrival of the digital twin, geomatics is becoming more and more a strategic integration driver, deploying a new, structuring 3D dataset across all municipal departments — urban planning, public works, forestry, public safety, communications, and more.

💡By implementing this solution across departments, geomatics accelerates the modernization of territory management and optimizes internal processes, generating tangible gains: increased efficiency, substantial savings, and stronger collaboration between services.

🗺️ From complex 2D mapping to 3D engineering-grade territory for everyone!

The digital twin enhances geographic information systems (GIS) by providing a true-to-life representation of the real world, based on high-precision LiDAR scanning and 360° panoramic imaging.

Here’s how it supports geomatics teams:

• Layer integration in the 3D environment: visualization of networks, zoning, municipal assets, and more.

• Precise geospatial measurements: distances, areas, heights, volumes — without field trips, supporting surveying, engineering, and urban planning services.

• Rapid validation of field elements: presence, location, clearance, encroachments — all within a visual context.

🙋👷‍♂️🧑‍💻 Who directly benefits from the digital twin?

Thanks to its ease of use and the absence of complex technical training requirements, several municipal services can immediately benefit from the digital twin:

Municipal Inspector (Infrastructure, Roads, Buildings)

Plans and conducts remote visual inspections to verify compliance, prepare interventions, or document findings.

Public Works Manager

Organizes maintenance, plans work, and validates existing assets without the need for initial site visits.

Engineering Technician

Supports infrastructure projects with precise measurements and context verification directly within a 3D environment.

Horticulturist / Urban Forestry Specialist

Identifies planting zones, monitors tree growth, and plans maintenance interventions based on a comprehensive territorial view.

Public Safety Services (Police, Firefighters, Emergency Services)

Prepares intervention plans, analyzes access points, and assesses risks in advance by simulating real-world contexts.

Permits and Inspections Office

Quickly evaluates permit applications (construction, signage, renovations) by visualizing the real-world state of the land or built environment.

✅ Global Benefits

📐 Greater precision: millimetric measurements, georeferenced data, reliable contextual visualization.

⏱️ Increased agility: validate elements in just a few clicks, without waiting for field surveys.

🛠️ Improved services to all departments/divisions: provide additional layers and enriched 3D data.

🗂️ Data centralization: integrate the digital twin into the GIS ecosystem for a unified view of the territory.

🚀 Elevated role of geomatics: Be a catalyst for municipal innovation.

🔗 Seamless integration with your GIS tools

(The more technical part 😉)

Jakarto’s digital twin is not a closed environment — on the contrary, it is designed to integrate easily into existing GIS ecosystems:

• Dedicated APIs and plugins: to easily integrate inventories, measurements, and digital twins into your internal platforms (ArcGIS, QGIS, etc.).

• WMTS (Web Map Tile Service) feeds: real-time access to raster tiles (orthophotos, ground, classification, verticality, 2.5D shading).

• Standard data formats: export in shapefile, GeoJSON, CSV, DXF, LAS/LAZ formats depending on your projects.

• Connection to existing databases: quickly cross-reference asset registries, zoning maps, networks, or intervention histories.

Thanks to this interoperability, geomatics becomes a natural driver for the dissemination and enhancement of territorial data across the municipality.

🏙️ Real-world example: City of Laval

With over 450,000 residents, nearly 1,800 kilometers of roads, and spanning 247 km², the City of Laval (Quebec, Canada) is a leading example of successful digital twin adoption.

In 2021, Laval’s GIS Excellence center launched a pilot project with Jakarto, using 3D data initially captured for promotional purposes.

Since then, adoption has grown rapidly.
Today, nearly 500 users across multiple departments rely on the platform daily:

• Legal Affairs: verifying citizen complaints and supporting investigations.

• Public Safety: planning emergency interventions and improving situational awareness.

• Public Works, Urban Planning, Forestry, Permits: streamlining planning, maintenance, and asset management.

• 311 Citizen Service Center: accelerating responses to citizen service requests with greater accuracy.

By enabling remote field validation, Laval has sped up service delivery, enhanced citizen satisfaction, and eliminated unnecessary site visits.

This transformation has also driven major cost savings, reflected in significantly lower bids received during recent tenders — tangible proof of better planning and reduced operational costs.

Building on this success, Laval recently commissioned Jakarto to deliver a full inventory of its urban trees and canopy, reinforcing its commitment to sustainable, data-driven urban management.
👉 Read more about Laval’s urban forestry project with Jakarto.

Laval’s experience shows how a digital twin, championed by the geomatics team, can quickly become an essential asset — boosting internal efficiency, citizen services, and financial performance across an entire city.

🌐 Conclusion: Geomatics at the Heart of a Transforming City

The digital twin does more than transform maps: it redefines the role of the geomatics department within the city.

By becoming the catalyst for integrating intelligent 3D data across all services, geomatics directly contributes to modernizing municipal processes, with concrete results: fewer site visits, greater precision, better-informed decisions, and substantial savings at every step.

🎯 Geomatics thus becomes a lever for innovation, performance, and interdepartmental coordination — at the heart of a city managed with rigor, vision… and 3D data!