How to Build 3D Digital Twins Faster with Devum

Across industries, the way organisations visualise, monitor, and interact with operational data is undergoing a transformation. Traditional dashboards, static charts, and spreadsheets have long been used to track performance, but these two-dimensional views often lack the context needed to understand events as they unfold. For industries such as mining, construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas, this limitation has created a gap between raw data and the physical reality in which that data originates. 

This is where 3D digital twin technology comes into play. Unlike conventional reporting, a digital twin creates a virtual, interactive replica of a real-world asset, process, or even an entire system. The result is a dynamic, spatially aware model that bridges the divide between operational intelligence and physical environments. With the advent of low-code development platforms such as Devum™, the process of building a 3D digital twin has become faster, simpler, and more cost-effective, removing the traditional barriers of complex coding and long development cycles. 

What Is a 3D Digital Twin?  

A 3D digital twin is not just a static model, it is a virtual, living system that mirrors the state of a physical asset or environment. Continuously updated with real-time data from sensors, machinery, and workflows, a digital twin enables decision-makers to see operations as they happen, pinpoint inefficiencies, and anticipate potential issues before they escalate. 

For instance, in a manufacturing facility, a digital twin can visually represent production lines, flagging machine health and predicting maintenance requirements. On a construction site, it can provide real-time updates on structural stability, monitor progress across multiple levels, and ensure compliance with safety regulations. Within an underground mine, the technology can map out tunnels, track ventilation flows, monitor air quality, and even display personnel and asset/equipment movement in real-time. 

The essence of a digital twin is its ability to bring data into context, allowing leaders to make decisions supported not just by numbers, but by a clear visual understanding of their operational environment.  

Why Are Digital Twins Becoming Essential Across Industries?   

As industries evolve, operational complexity continues to increase. Traditional monitoring methods, which often rely on manual inspections or fragmented digital tools, are proving insufficient for the pace and scale of today’s demands. Digital twins are gaining momentum because they provide a single source of truth that unites previously siloed data streams. 

Take mining, for example: relying solely on manual monitoring in such high-risk environments can create blind spots. In manufacturing, unanticipated equipment breakdowns can halt entire production lines, leading to costly downtime. In construction, a lack of real-time oversight can create delays and compromise safety. A digital twin addresses all these challenges by enabling predictive analytics, continuous monitoring, and scenario simulations. 

By integrating spatial intelligence with real-time data, businesses benefit from: 

• Consolidated decision-making with all critical information centralised.
• Predictive insights into equipment reliability, environmental risks, or structural integrity.
• Scenario testing that allows managers to simulate outcomes before investing in changes.    
  

In short, digital twins are not just a technological upgrade, they are becoming indispensable to competitiveness, safety, and sustainability. 

How Does 3D Digital Twin Technology Work?   

At its foundation, a 3D digital twin blends three critical components: 

• A Spatial Environment: An interactive 3D world that reflects the real-world layout of a mine, plant, factory floor, or city area.
• Digital Assets and Models: Accurate 3D representations of machines, tunnels, or equipment.
• Live Data Integrations: Continuous streams of data from IoT sensors, telemetry systems, and workflows.
  

By combining these elements, a digital twin becomes an operational replica. For example, an operations manager can navigate through a virtual model of their facility, zoom in on specific equipment, and instantly view its maintenance history, performance metrics, and live sensor readings, all in real-time. 

This capability creates a living map of operations, radically improving situational awareness and operational response time. 

The Traditional Challenge: Why Building a Digital Twin Was Difficult 

While the benefits of digital twins are clear, their adoption historically faced significant barriers. Creating a custom-built twin once required highly specialised 3D graphics expertise, bespoke coding for integrating data systems, and lengthy development timelines. By the time such systems were ready to deploy, the data they relied upon was often outdated. 

This meant only large organisations with extensive budgets could consider implementing digital twins, limiting their accessibility and leaving many industries reliant on 2D reports and outdated monitoring tools. The complexity of custom development made scalability a major issue, rolling out updates was slow, inflexible, and prohibitively expensive. 

How Low-Code Application Platforms Change the Game  

The introduction of low-code application platforms like Devum™ has revolutionised digital twin development. Instead of needing advanced programming knowledge, businesses can now use drag-and-drop interfaces, pre-configured controls, and built-in data integration features to create interactive twins in a fraction of the time.

Key advantages of low-code platforms include:

• Rapid Development: Reduce project delivery timelines from months to weeks or even days.
• Accessibility: Empower engineers, managers, and domain experts to contribute directly to digital twin creation.
• Flexibility: Integrate seamlessly with standard 3D file formats (.GLTF, .GLB) and real-time data sources.
• Ease of Iteration: Update, scale, or modify the twin without starting from scratch.

By putting the power of digitalisation directly into the hands of operational teams rather than relying solely on external developers, low-code platforms ensure that digital twins can evolve alongside changing business requirements.   

How to Build a 3D Digital Twin Using Devum™

With Devum™’s low-code platform, creating a 3D digital twin becomes a structured, repeatable, and efficient process. Each step is designed to minimise complexity while maximising accuracy and interactivity.

1. Define the Scope and Objectives

The process begins with clarifying the specific system, asset, or environment the digital twin will represent. This could range from an underground mine to a manufacturing line, a pipeline network, or even an entire plant. At this stage, it is essential to establish the key metrics and KPIs, such as airflow, structural stability, equipment utilisation, or energy consumption that the twin must continuously monitor.

2. Set Up the 3D Spatial Environment

Using Devum’s advanced 3D engine, users can quickly create a static or dynamic spatial framework that mirrors real-world conditions. Coordinate systems, such as Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones, can be defined to enable precise real-time tracking of movable entities. This ensures that every component whether part of an industrial plant, a mining operation, or a geological formation — is positioned accurately within its physical context. 

3. Import 3D Models 

CAD files or 3D design assets can be imported directly into the spatial environment in commonly used formats, complete with their built-in geospatial positions. Devum enables fine-grained customisation of these models, including the addition of multiple data layers. This makes each model not only visually accurate but also fully interactive and data-rich within the digital twin. 

4. Add Data Visuals

Certain types of operational data do not correspond to a tangible asset but are nonetheless critical to monitor such as performance parameters, infrastructure conditions, or safety thresholds. Devum allows these to be represented visually within the 3D environment using colour-coded shapes, geometric indicators, or overlays. This ensures that abstract values are transformed into clear, intuitive visuals that are easy to interpret in context. 

5. Bind Real-Time Data Sources 

Every object or visual element can be connected to live or historical data sources. For instance, a machine or asset may change colour dynamically based on sensor readings, while selecting it in the model can reveal a panel displaying performance trends, downtime history, and predictive maintenance alerts. This seamless data binding makes the digital twin both interactive and continuously reflective of real-world conditions. 

6. Deploy and Iterate 

Once configured, the digital twin can be deployed through web-based interfaces, ensuring accessibility across devices and departments. Because it is built in a low-code environment, updates and enhancements can be implemented rapidly, thus enabling continuous optimisation without the need for redevelopment or extensive coding.

Real-world Applications Across Industries   

The impact of 3D digital twins extends far beyond mining:   

• Manufacturing: Monitor production flows in real-time, optimise equipment maintenance, and reduce downtime.
• Construction: Track project milestones, visualise safety conditions, and coordinate multiple stakeholders.
• Oil and Gas: Map offshore rigs, pipelines, and environmental sensors to improve operational safety.
• Urban Planning: Evaluate utility networks, traffic flows, or infrastructure resilience for future development. 
  

Strategic Benefits of Building a Digital Twin    

Businesses that adopt digital twin technology through low-code development platforms consistently report measurable benefits: 

• Enhanced Visibility: Gain a comprehensive, real-time overview of operations.
• Improved Safety: Identify risks earlier and accelerate emergency response times.
• Optimised Planning: Support data-driven decisions for maintenance, drilling, construction, or scheduling.
• Cost Efficiencies: Reduce equipment downtime, prevent unplanned repairs, and optimise resource allocation.

These are not abstract promises, but tangible outcomes already realised in industrial settings worldwide. 

The Future of Digital Twin Creation  

As sensor technology becomes more affordable, data integration standards improve, and 3D engines grow more powerful, the adoption of digital twins is expected to accelerate. Low-code platforms such as Devum™ are leading this shift by lowering entry barriers while expanding scalability. 

For mining, this means real-time insight into tunnelling, ventilation, and subsidence prevention. For construction, it unlocks project transparency and safer workflows. For manufacturing, it ensures smarter production lines and predictive maintenance. The applications are vast, and the opportunity is now. 

By combining WebGL-based 3D rendering with an intuitive low-code design framework, Devum™ allows industries to build, deploy, and scale digital twins without the heavy coding traditionally required. This democratises access to advanced digitalisation ensuring innovation is no longer limited to those with large IT budgets. 

In essence, 3D digital twins are not the future of industrial operations—they are rapidly becoming the present. With tools like Devum™, organisations have the capability to reimagine their operations, improve safety, and unlock new efficiencies across every sector. 

Ready to create and visualise a 3D digital twin of your operations? Start your FREE trial of Devum today to create the 3D digital twin of your plant/mine that you have been waiting for.