Educational institutions operate in an increasingly digital and global landscape. This presents challenges in attracting geographically diverse students, adapting to remote learning models, and managing complex campus infrastructures. A 3D digital twin provides a functional set of tools for addressing these challenges across recruitment, academics, and facilities management.

This guide provides a practical overview of how this technology is applied in the education sector.

A technician using a Matterport camera to create a digital twin of a college in Hyderabad.
Scanning at Kautilya School of Public Policy, Hyderabad.

Application 1: Student Recruitment and Virtual Tours

A virtual campus tour created from a 3D digital twin is an interactive, dimensionally-accurate model that allows prospective students to explore an institution online. This provides several practical advantages for admissions departments:

  • Expanded Geographical Reach: It makes the campus accessible to international students and those from other regions who cannot visit in person due to location or financial constraints.
  • Informational Transparency: It offers a detailed and realistic view of key facilities—from lecture halls and labs to libraries and student housing. This helps build applicant confidence by providing comprehensive, verifiable information for their decision-making process.
  • Parental and Family Engagement: A virtual tour is a shareable asset that allows parents and family members to participate in the student's decision-making process, even from a distance.

Application 2: Remote and Hybrid Learning

The utility of a digital twin extends into academic instruction, particularly for remote and hybrid courses:

  • Virtual Lab and Studio Access: Gives online students 3D access to specialized spaces like science labs, art studios, or engineering workshops, allowing them to examine equipment and understand layouts they cannot physically access.
  • Interactive Learning Aids: Educators can embed annotations ("Mattertags") within the 3D model. These can link to explanatory videos, diagrams, academic papers, or quizzes at specific points of interest, creating a self-guided learning environment.
  • Virtual Field Trips: A digital twin of an off-campus historical site, museum, or geological formation can be used as a resource for remote students, providing a level of experiential learning beyond static images or videos.

Application 3: Campus Operations and Facilities Management

Beyond student-facing use cases, a digital twin is a valuable tool for internal campus and facilities management:

  • Space Planning and Utilization: It provides accurate measurements and visualizations for optimizing classroom layouts, planning event setups in common areas, or assessing space allocation across departments.
  • Maintenance and Repairs: It enables remote inspection of infrastructure and allows teams to share precise visual context with maintenance crews or external vendors, reducing ambiguity and improving coordination.
  • Safety and Accessibility Audits: The model can be used to plan emergency evacuation routes, identify accessibility barriers, and train staff on safety protocols in a virtual environment.

Conclusion

For educational institutions, a 3D digital twin is a multi-purpose asset. It acts as a recruitment tool to attract a global student body, a teaching aid for remote learning, and an operational tool for efficient campus management. It is a practical application of technology designed to improve workflows across the primary functions of a modern academic institution.