JBG Smith National Landing Experience Center
Immersive City-Scale Digital Twin in Unreal Engine
A new 21st-century, 4-square-mile urban neighborhood is taking shape in the Capital Region of Washington, D.C., developed by JBG Smith. The district features over 6.3 million square feet of existing office space, 2,856 residential units, and 7.2 million square feet of additional development potential. It will also become home to Amazon’s iconic HQ2 “Helix” headquarters and Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus.
For its state-of-the-art sales center, I engineered an interactive display system consisting of one 8K screen and three 4K screens, seamlessly visualizing a city-scale 3D model alongside 2D assets. The project was originally built in Unreal Engine 4.27 and later renovated and optimized in Unreal Engine 5.3, delivering a significantly enhanced experience.
The client was highly impressed with the results, leading to an opportunity to take on another high-profile project with CBRE.
Developed Systems
Unreal Engine Programming
Orbit & Focus Camera System
nDisplay Synchronization (3 Nodes)
RTSP Video Streamer
Dynamic Media Player
Custom Blueprint for Multi-screen Configuration
Automation on Asset Import, Sub-level Management, Customized Build Actions
Fly, Orbit, and Capture Dramatic Paths Anywhere in the Digital Twin
With the POI camera system, users can easily set up and fly between any location in the digital twin with smooth, cinematic motion by simply moving the camera and creating points of interest (POIs). The dynamic look-at feature allows the camera to transition seamlessly from fixed positions to orbit points, then move to the destination POI, automatically orbiting around it before returning to the designated orbit point. If the POI includes a fixed position, the camera then gracefully lowers to it.
In the Unreal Engine 5.3 update, the system was enhanced to allow multiple waypoints to be captured and stored for each POI. This enables the engine to automatically generate smooth, dramatic camera paths, creating a more immersive and visually compelling experience.
Fully Integrated Digital Twin on 8K Curved Screen
Using nDisplay with Genlock and Framelock, I synchronized three nodes of a massive Unreal digital twin project featuring over 25,000 actors on an 8,320 × 2,520 LED display. A single UE package was installed on each machine via AV&C’s deployment tool, with each node running its own nDisplay configuration. The cluster can also display cropped images and videos, allowing users to seamlessly present both full-sized immersive 3D content and real-time 2D assets.
Unlimited Media Playback over Digital Twin
Using the TouchEngine plugin, I developed a custom media player capable of seamlessly playing images, videos, and RTSP camera feeds within the same Unreal package without requiring additional updates. This allows clients to effortlessly switch between 3D flying mode and media presentation, with unlimited media dynamically loaded and synced to the server in real time. The player also features an A/B deck for smooth crossfades between media, ensuring fluid transitions between immersive 3D content and dynamic media assets.