MIM2 - Representing Data

DeltaTwin® support for annotating artifacts and resources

In DeltaTwin®, an artifact is a core concept used to store, share and ultimately publish data. Given the collaborative nature of DestinE, and the diversity of contributors, annotating user artifacts with standardized metadata is essential. Such metadata ensures a consistent understanding of data content, structure, provenance, and quality, thereby facilitating discoverability, interoperability, and reuse across DeltaTwin® components.

Following the MIM2 recommendation to use standard data models, DeltaTwin® uses Smart Data Models as the primary metadata framework for its artifacts.

Smart Data Models

Smart data models are standardized, technology-agnostic data structures that represent real-world entities or concepts to facilitate interoperability and data exchange across different systems and applications, especially within the context of smart cities and IoT.

Aligning with MIM2 ensures that metadata in DeltaTwin® is standardized, reducing ambiguity and supporting long-term artifact sustainability beyond their original context or creators. This also positions DeltaTwin® within a widely adopted, industry-recognized ecosystem for extensible and semantically rich data annotation.

As of August 2025, Smart Data Models structure the physical world into digital information, organized into:

• 13 domains (e.g., Smart Cities , Smart Sensoring )
• 77 subjects (or dataModels) (e.g., SatelliteImagery , Forestry , StreetLighting )
• 1,042 entities (e.g., EOAnalysis , WaterObserved )
• 161,099 attributes (e.g., temperature, address, dateCreated, valueQuantity, start)

Smart Data Models Support in DeltaTwin®

The Smart Data Models ecosystem can be complex to navigate. Currently, DeltaTwin® allows users to annotate their artifacts with properties derived from Smart Data Models attributes (Save Artifact). Users use a form to search for attributes or entities that correspond to their artifact.