Citation: Choi, S.; Yoon, K.; Kim, M.;
Yoo, J.; Lee, B.; Song, I.; Woo, J.
Building Korean DMZ Metaverse
Using a Web-Based Metaverse
Platform. Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 7908.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
app12157908
Academic Editor: Dimitris Mourtzis
Received: 1 July 2022
Accepted: 3 August 2022
Published: 7 August 2022
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Article
Building Korean DMZ Metaverse Using a Web-Based
Metaverse Platform
Sangsu Choi, Kajoong Yoon, Miae Kim, Jintak Yoo, Bonghyeon Lee, Inho Song and Jungyub Woo *
R&D Research Center, IGI Korea, Seoul 08376, Korea
* Correspondence: jungyub.woo@ontwins.com
Abstract:
Metaverse is a compound word of “Meta” and “Universe”, meaning a world that transcends
reality, a new virtual world. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, non-face-to-face further accelerated
the activation of the Metaverse. The Metaverse has the attractiveness of arousing user interest, high
service scalability, and the potential to combine multiple revenue models. Therefore, many industries
are adopting the Metaverse. The Republic of Korea has been on a ceasefire, since 1953, after the
Korean War. After the war, the DMZ was decided in an area of 2 km from north to south (total
of 4 km), centered on the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). The DMZ area is the largest nature
conservation area in Asia and a military area where public access is strictly restricted. The Ministry
of Unification is trying to reduce tensions and establish peace in the DMZ area by raising the interest
of Korean people, as well as people around the world, through the DMZ Metaverse application. The
Korean government has its own e-Government framework and cloud operating environments. In
order to adopt the Metaverse to Korean government agencies and operate them sustainably, it is
essential to support the e-Government framework and the cloud environments. In this paper, the
design features, architecture, models, and functions of OnTwins, a Metaverse platform serviceable
in the Korean government IT operating environment, are elaborated in detail. The DMZ Metaverse
public service built on the platform will also be introduced. Finally, after comparing it with other
Metaverse platforms, future research directions are discussed.
Keywords: Metaverse; Web3D; digital twin; virtual world; VR/AR
1. Introduction
Metaverse is a compound word of “Meta”, meaning virtual and transcendence, and
“Universe”, meaning the world. In 2007, the Acceleration Studies Foundation (ASF) classi-
fied the Metaverse into four types: Lifelogging, Augmented Reality, Virtual World, and
Mirror World [
1
]. Lifelogging is a technology that captures, stores, and depicts everyday
experiences and information about objects and people. Augmented Reality refers to an
environment that interacts through virtual, overlapping objects expressed in 2D or 3D in
real space. Virtual World is an alternative world built from digital data, which may be
similar to reality or completely different from reality. Games are a representative virtual
world. Mirror World refers to an informationally expanded virtual world that reflects
the real world as realistically as possible. Google Earth and digital twins are representa-
tive examples. The Metaverse is rapidly developing based on the combination of these
four types [
2
]. Big tech companies, such as Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Microsoft,
Apple, Google, and NVIDIA, are leading the Metaverse base technology market, and they
are conducting R&D based on astronomical investment to gain technological advantage.
Big tech companies are focusing on securing original technologies such as VR/AR devices,
3D GPUs, rendering, and Metaverse platforms [3].
The advantages of the Metaverse are as follows [4]. First, it has an attraction that can
arouse customer interest. Through real-time interaction between avatars, users can feel a
sense of presence and immersion in a space similar to reality, and users can feel vicarious
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 7908. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12157908 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci
