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Our department has been actively developing digital twin projects both within LSU and with external partners. We recently completed a three-year collaboration with NASA, building an exploratory digital twin of the Michoud Assembly Facility. More recently, we've turned our attention closer to home with the creation of a digital twin for Patrick F. Taylor Hall (PFT Digital Twin).

This project represents a cutting-edge partnership between the College of Engineering, the Department of Construction Management, and the Digital Media Arts & Engineering (DMAE) program. Built using Unreal Engine, the PFT Digital Twin delivers an immersive, highly detailed virtual replica of the second-largest engineering building in the United States.

Designed to serve both public and internal audiences, the PFT Digital Twin functions as an interactive educational tool—giving visitors insight into the building’s architecture, purpose, and significance. Internally, it acts as a centralized resource for building intelligence, providing real-time data on occupancy, square footage, space usage, and integrating with the building’s extensive sensor network.

We're also exploring the role of digital twins in education. One current initiative involves twinning a near-field optical microscope—one of only three of its kind in the world—to democratize access and accelerate learning in specialized research fields.

To round things out, our faculty and students are engaging in a range of projects that visualize and simulate off-world construction, preserve digital art in virtual spaces, and experiment with AR applications in digital twin environments.

It’s an exciting time for digital twinning at LSU, and we look forward to sharing more as these projects evolve.