Simulation software specialist rFpro has launched an engineering-grade digital twin of Japan’s Hakone Turnpike, a 15 km (9.3 mile) toll road often used by Japanese vehicle manufacturers for vehicle dynamics development.
The route of the digital twin climbs through the forested mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture and is commercially available now, with the model already adopted by a major Japanese OEM, according to rFpro.
The digital twin has been created using survey-grade light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scan data to produce a vehicle dynamics-grade road surface accurate to within 1 mm in height across the entire 15 km route. Every kerb, drain, paint marking, and barrier has been positioned to match its real-world counterpart, with paint markings replicated as worn and cracked to increase realism.
Building a route at this scale requires a balance of visual detail against real-time performance. A driver-in-the-loop (DiL) simulator must run in real time, so rFpro’s content team applied engineering-grade fidelity in the areas most critical for vehicle dynamics development. Indeed the detailed modelling extends approximately 25m either side of the road. Beyond that, the surrounding landscape, including distant hills and Mount Fuji, is represented by an optimised 3D terrain model incorporating satellite imagery.
The model includes 57,000 trees, 13 km of Armco barriers, 460 drain covers, and more than 45 km of painted road markings. The tollgate and entrance plazas are fully modelled. The route also features 12m-high retaining walls, which sit directly in the driver’s field of view; rFpro used advanced material shaders to produce the long unique sections of brickwork texture along the route so they appear realistic at close range.
Hakone Turnpike joins rFpro’s library of Japan content, which includes public road models of Tokyo’s C1 urban expressway and the Tomei expressway, as well as race and test circuits such as Suzuka, Fuji, Okayama, Motegi, Sugo, and Autopolis.
rFpro has also completed high-fidelity LiDAR scans of public road areas in Odawara, Yokkaichi, and Kyoto, and is working with customers to develop these into further additions to its public road library.
Catherine Wood, head of content at rFpro, said, “Hakone is one of the most demanding builds we have taken on. The scale, the vegetation, the walls and the sheer quantity of surface detail all had to be handled without compromising simulator performance. The result is a route our customers can use with confidence for vehicle dynamics and is incredibly immersive for drivers who already know it well.”
“The Hakone model is proving popular with our customers as it’s a route their test drivers already know intimately,” she added.
