Digital Twin Platform CDT

Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) has been researching and developing the potential for a digital twin for Canada since 2014. The creation of the Canada’s Digital Twin prototype is the next step in our research. During the Imagining Canada’s Digital Twin project, we determined that a digital twin has three basic requirements: a physical asset, its digital equivalent, and the data connections between the two, forming a feedback loop. The prototype serves as a web-based, non-proprietary platform for this feedback loop between the digital and physical, and allows users to interact with and visualize multi-scale geospatial information systems (GIS), open data, open building information modeling (BIM), and various other types of digital media.

The platform employs full-stack web development frameworks to seamlessly integrate multiple open-source packages, and incorporate maps and 3D models. It uses multi-scale (federal, provincial, and municipal) open data, fetched directly from respective organization APIs without the need for data storage. Using an authentication system, users can assume different roles and credentials to participate individually or as a group and access data and features, collaborate, and input various types of digital media publicly or privately. The platform is designed to be easily accessible and intuitive for users even without prior technical knowledge of the software.

The development of the Canada’s Digital Twin prototype grew from and is informed by our extensive experience with similar projects: The Batawa: Building Information Model (2009), Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg: Building Information Model, Digital Campus Innovation (2014-2019), Ontario East 3D (2016-2021), Sustain (2019-2021), and Imagining Canada’s Digital Twin (2020-2023). These projects helped CIMS establish the groundwork for creating a digital twin prototype, and opened up possibilities for other projects to explore the use of a platform prototype at different scales.

In partnership with the National Research Council and the Department of National Defence, the platform was awarded the Best in Professional Research Award at the 2025 BuildingSMART International Summit. This marks the first win for a Canadian organization at the bSI awards.