Digital Twins

Where the virtual world gets real

Make smarter decisions with an Unreal Engine-powered digital twin. By combining the power of Unreal Engine with live, real-time data, you can create photorealistic virtual replicas that continuously mirror real-world assets. Enhance productivity, visualize all your data in one place, elevate your operational expertise—and drive cost efficiencies across your pipeline.

Courtesy of SpaceForm

What is a digital twin?

A digital twin is more than just a CG replica of a real-world entity. It’s an accurate 3D model that’s constantly refreshed with live data in real time
—a dynamic mirror that updates in tandem with its physical counterpart.

Digital twins can exist at any scale, from individual products and stores to entire buildings, cities, and even planet-wide systems. What’s more, they can span basic data visualization to fully autonomous digital twins that self-correct
in real time.

Originally implemented by architects to create interactive CG replicas of buildings, digital twins are now used to model entire cities for urban planning, visualize driver interactions within car dashboards, enable realistic stuntwork
in film production, and much more.

Meet the digital twin innovators

From Lotus to Geopogo, brands across diverse industries are turning to Unreal Engine to create and power their digital twins.

AECO

Architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) companies are using digital twins of buildings for design validation, client walkthroughs, and lifecycle monitoring, while 3D models of cities are being brought to life with real-world data for urban planning, traffic management, and infrastructure visualization.

Geopogo

PropVR

Spaceform

SmartSpatial

Courtesy of PropVR

Automotive

Automakers are elevating the vehicle experience by incorporating digital twins into the human-machine interfaces (HMI) of vehicles. Digital twins are also being used to optimize the logistics and management of complex infrastructure systems like ports and railways.

Lotus

Geely

Samwoo

CORYS

Simulation

From aviation training to the testing of autonomous vehicles, digital twins are a vital aspect of creating simulation environments when accuracy and realism are non-negotiable.

Cesium from Bentley Systems

Entrol

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)

SAS

A digital twin for aviation training made in UE5.

Courtesy of Entrol

Fashion, CPG, and Retail

Digital twins of stores and manufacturing facilities are changing the way we think about producing and selling goods across fashion, retail, and CPG.

Nike Airphoria

Warehouse

Courtesy of PixelPool

Other industries

You’ll find digital twins being used across a number of other industries, including film and TV, live events as well as for amusement parks, and beyond.

Moment Factory

PXO Akira

Courtesy of Moment Factory and Alive Coverage

“With the help of SAS and Unreal Engine, we can create realistic simulations of factory operations. Imagine watching AGVs navigate through a bustling factory floor, reacting to proximity alerts, obstacles and rare adverse events in real time."

Roshan Shah, GP’s Vice President of AI & Products.

Why use Unreal Engine for digital twins?

Build digital twins with Unreal Engine

With Unreal Engine, you can create complex digital twins, and use them to visualize your assets, processes, and workflows like never before—in real time.

Go to library

Discover how Cityscape Digital uses Unreal Engine as the core communication tool for complex aggregated live data for AECO development.

Dive into the use of Unreal Engine, Twinmotion, Cesium for Unreal, and 3D Tiles in digital twin projects with examples of real-world projects.

Check out an innovative digital twin of the Argonne National Laboratory's METL facility that leverages UE5 to monitor and visualize operations in real time.

Licensing

We’ve streamlined our license terms to make your choices clearer. Need something designed just for you? Work with us to create a custom license. Visit our FAQ or reach out to the community if you have any questions.

Under $1 million USD in revenue?

Free

Game developers (royalties apply after $1 million USD gross product revenue)
Individuals and small businesses (with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue)
For educators and schools (no revenue limits)

Access to the source code
All platforms & features
Forums and documentation on the Epic Developer Community

Download now View FAQ Licensing Terms

Over $1 million USD in revenue?

Royalty-based

If you're creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, you'll pay royalties and won't be required to purchase seats.

Seat-based

If you're using Unreal Engine for commercial purposes, have generated more than $1 million in the past 12 months, and are not creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, then a seat license fee is required.

Unreal Engine is just the beginning.

With Unreal Engine, you don’t just get powerful creative tools. You also have access to an entire ecosystem to publish, operate, and collect revenue from your game.

Self-publishing tools

Now open to all developers and publishers, start distributing PC games on the Epic Games Store with our self-service publishing tools.

Learn more

Epic Online Services

These free cross-platform services make it easier and faster for devs to successfully launch, operate, and scale high-quality games.

Learn more

Launching for console?

There’s no fee or cost related to using Unreal Engine on a console but you’ll need platform holder approval to access the necessary SDKs.

Get access

Notification of release

When the time comes to release your title, please fill in the release form and let us know a little about yourself and your game.

Submit details

Reporting royalties

When your game starts generating revenue, you’ll need to track gross revenue and pay a 5% royalty after $1 million USD.

Submit royalties

The Fab marketplace

Access a huge library of free and purchasable digital assets—3D models, materials, sound, VFX, digital humans, and more.

Browse now

Looking to use the Unreal Engine logo in your project? Access our brand guidelines and logos here.

Need help?

Connect with creators across industries and around the globe. Share everything from shortcuts to snippets to secret shader tricks. When you use Unreal Engine, you’re never alone—our community of hundreds of thousands of developers is here to support you as you bring your idea to life.

Get Unreal Engine

Want to get to grips with Unreal Engine yourself? It's free to download and comes production-ready out of the box, with every feature and full source code access included.

Talk to us

If you require premium support, private training, and/or are looking for different royalty terms than those offered by the standard license, reach out to us to discuss your options.

Where the virtual world gets real