Minecraft Digital Twin

We've been working on putting together a "Digital Twin" of DoES Liverpool, the Fabric Building DoES is in on Kempston Street, and the wider Fabric District in Liverpool. We are using MineCraft Java Edition for this.

This has been a conversation that has recurred over some years for various reasons including,

• raising awareness that the DoES #MakeSpace #HackSpace exists
• being a way to locate resources within DoES for newcomers
• an experiment to link IoT devices in real life (IRL) to a virtual reality (VR).

Most recently the idea of linking low power wide area (LPWA) sensors to Minecraft has spurred us on.

Note: That Minecraft Java Edition (for laptops and PCs) is not compatible with Minecraft Pocket Edition, which seems to have been renamed Bed Rock.

Current state of play (15th December 2019)

I (Alex @ajlennon) have set-up a Minecraft server on a ProxMox Virtualisation System hosted at Hetzner.

The server is currently hosted on minecraft.dynamicdevices.co.uk. The standard Minecraft port 25565 is open to the world.

I am acting under expert advisement as I am a Minecraft #Noob and have been told we need a range of "mods" installed into MineCraft to facilitate development.

Initial Mapping Environment.

I wanted to start with a map that was roughly to some scale so that if others are interested in engaging with this project we could model places around the Fabric District and indeed Liverpool, not just DoES.

Also our intention is to deploy a range of IoT sensors around the area to connect into the digital twin so it makes sense to have a map that at least roughly aligns to RL.

I found that GeoBoxers offer a paid service which converts areas in OpenStreetMaps to block maps. I purchased a Minecraft Java Edition map of the area around DoES Liverpool from them

https://www.geoboxers.com/worldbloxer

NOTE: I purchased the map for individual use. This prohibits commercial use and uploading and sharing. However I made contact with the team at GeoBoxers and explained my intention to create a digital twin for collaboration and for exclusively non-commercial use. On this basis they were happy to allow me to upload the map to a cloud server for collaboration. Under the agreed terms this mapping source data will not be shared with 3rd parties. Any future commercial use of this mapping data would need to be discussed with GeoBoxers first.

Mods

We started with Razz's "DecoMod" which is an array of mods:

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/razzs-decopack

There are an array of different Minecraft extensions and I am still trying to understand how all the bits of the Jigsaw fit but at present:

• The Minecraft server is 1.10.2 as this is the latest supported by Razz's DecoPack.

I want to work out which mods are incompatible as this seems a very old server and I want to move forward to at least 1.12.2 if this is possible [Help needed!]

• I've added a number of mods into the mods folder of the Minecraft server from Razz's DecoPack. A couple of them failed for some reason and I have disabled those.

Current mods:

ajlennon@minecraft:/opt/minecraft/forge-server/mods$ ls -l
total 123280
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    32675 Dec 10 19:02 '[1.10.x]FenceOverhaul-1.2.1.jar'
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   674230 Dec 10 19:02  ArchitectureCraft-1.7.1-mc1.10.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  3905964 Dec 10 19:02  BetterFoliage-MC1.10.2-2.1.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    18153 Dec 10 19:02  BetterThanBunnies-1.10.2-1.1.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  5009610 Dec 10 20:54 'BiblioCraft[v2.2.5][MC1.10.2].jar'
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   114225 Dec 10 19:02  BigDoors-1.10.2-1.3.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  6159132 Dec 10 19:02  BiomesOPlenty-1.10.2-5.0.0.2109-universal.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  7133898 Dec 10 19:02  Chisel-MC1.10.2-0.0.7.7.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   650214 Dec 10 19:02  chiselsandbits-12.8.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft 11310922 Dec 10 19:02 'CustomNPCs_1.10.2(20nov16).jar'
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft 12792500 Dec 10 19:02  Decocraft-2.3.6.1_1.10.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  8772559 Dec 10 19:02  DynamicSurroundings-3.1.0.0BETA.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  1106012 Dec 10 19:02  fairylights-2.0.0-1.10.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   365144 Dec 10 19:02  Farseek-1.9.4-2.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    10431 Dec 10 19:02  FastLeaveDecay-MC1.10.2-1.2.3.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  4039871 Dec 10 19:02  forestry_1.10.2-5.2.16.335.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    50420 Dec 15 00:50  ForgeGuard-SpongeGuard-alpha-v.0.6.1.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  4320252 Dec 10 19:02  ImmersiveEngineering-0.10-53.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   230808 Dec 10 19:02  InventoryTweaks-1.61-58.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   463206 Dec 10 19:02  jei_1.10.2-3.13.6.391.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  1963265 Dec 10 20:49  journeymap-1.10.2-5.5.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    22388 Dec 10 19:02  KleeSlabs_1.10.2-3.3.5.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   906405 Dec 10 19:02  malisiscore-1.10.2-4.2.9.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  1632747 Dec 10 19:02  malisisdoors-1.10.2-5.1.6.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   850608 Dec 10 19:02  Mantle-1.10.2-1.1.3.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   518998 Dec 10 19:02  MapWriter-1.10.2-2.6.19.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  3306597 Dec 10 19:02  MCA-1.10.2-5.2.3-universal.jar
-rw-rw-r-- 1 minecraft minecraft      144 Dec 10 18:42  mod_list.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   564820 Dec 10 19:02  natura-1.10.2-4.0.0.93.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  2573185 Dec 10 20:42  OptiFine_1.10.2_HD_U_H5.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  3055612 Dec 10 19:02 "Pam's HarvestCraft 1.9.4-1.10.2h.jar"
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   582695 Dec 10 19:02  platforms-1.10.0-1.2.7.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   154122 Dec 10 19:02  RadixCore-1.10.2-2.1.3-universal.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  3707140 Dec 10 19:02  Railcraft_1.10.2-10.0.1.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  1290046 Dec 10 19:02  RTG-1.10.2-4.1.2.0.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   368752 Dec 10 19:02  shetiphiancore-1.10.0-3.3.6.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft 35186498 Dec 15 01:04  spongeforge-1.10.2-2477-5.2.0-BETA-2793.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft    91220 Dec 10 19:02  tumbleweed-1.10-0.3.1.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   204701 Dec 15 01:08  UniverseGuard-2.14-1.10.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft   544490 Dec 10 19:02  Waila-1.7.0-B3_1.9.4.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft  1464826 Dec 10 19:02  worldedit-forge-mc1.10.2-6.1.4-dist.jar

Disabled Mods

ajlennon@minecraft:/opt/minecraft/forge-server/mods.failed$ ls -l
total 500
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft 272049 Dec 10 19:02 BabyAnimals-1.9.4.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 minecraft minecraft 231701 Dec 10 19:02 Streams-1.9.4-0.3.jar

TODO: I'm not entirely sure how you work out whether mods are server only or client only or server and client. To that end I've been installing all mods on both server and client. I'll describe client installation below in #GettingStarted

Non Razz's DecoPack mods

I experimented with adding some extra mods. as can be seen above. This includes the BiblioCraft mod.

I also wanted to install some permissions control so we could invite people to see the area in VR without worrying about changes being made. To that end I installed UniverseGuard which uses the Sponge API for Forge

TODO: There seem to be a myriad of these APIs knocking about, Sponge, Bukkit, Spigot, and many others. Would like to understand the differences.

Setting up the Client

We are using the MultiMC launcher as I had trouble with the vanilla Minecraft launcher.

You can download this here for Windows or Linux:

https://multimc.org/

You also need Java 1.8 installed. You can download this here

https://www.java.com/en/download/

NOTE: That you need the 64-bit version of Java installed on a 64-bit OS installation. If you are running the 32-bit Java for some reason you will not be able to allocate enough memory to run the Minecraft client with extensions.

Having installed MultiMC you run it and will be asked for some basic setup around language and Java.

Then go to Settings->Java and change Minimum Memory to at least 2048 MB and Maximum Memory to at least 4096 MB.

Then you can create a Minecraft client "Instance". The easiest way to do this is to use my current export ZIP file which is archived here:

https://github.com/DoESLiverpool/somewhere-safe/blob/master/digitaltwin/Fabric%20Digital%20Twin%20MineCraft%20Client.zip

Download this file, then in MultiMC "Add Instance" and "Import from Zip". This should give you the right version of the Minecraft Client (1.10.2) and all the needed mods.

Next "Launch" the instance and you'll be asked to add your Minecraft Java Edition account.

Then launch again and Minecraft will start up. This may take a while as there are quite a lot of mods.

You'll need to choose "Multiplayer" then "Add Server".

Add a new server at internet domain minecraft.dynamicdevices.co.uk. You should then be able to connect to the server and start playing!

By default you are now allowed to place or destroy blocks. Contact me for permissions to start building!