What’s an example of a Digital Twin? 6 real-world instances to inspire you | Omi.so

For centuries, people have recreated real-world entities in miniature to learn and simulate outcomes. Digital Twins are just the modern version.

Some associate Digital Twins with models that use sensor data to analyze real-world behavior under various conditions and update themselves.

However, Digital Twins are increasingly being used in marketing to scale the production of product visuals via virtual product photography. This example of Digital Twins is not unlike photorealistic 3D models. In fact, if you’ve ever seen a beautifully rendered packshot photo that looks almost too good to be true, it's because it is.

The 6 examples of Digital Twins we'll explore include 1) Product visuals for marketing, 2) Construction, 3) Aerospace and automotive, 4) Healthcare, 5) Urban planning, and 6) Manufacturing and engineering.

You'll see how Digital Twins help the industries predict building performance, monitor aerospace systems, and enable retailers to create quality imagery without cameras.

Examples of Digital Twins in different industries

Digital Twins revolutionize how industries approach planning, predictive maintenance, and visual communication across sectors.

From aerospace engineers preventing equipment failures to retailers creating product imagery at scale, these digital counterparts enable smarter decisions and more efficient operations.

1. Product visuals for marketing

One of the most accessible and fast-growing use cases for Digital Twins is in Virtual Product Photography for marketing. Namely, eCommerce pictures, social media, 360 product views, and ads.

This lets brands efficiently scale their production of on-brand packshots, lifestyle imagery, and interactive 3D product displays. All without coordinating complex shoots for every SKU or seasonal campaign.

Instead of dealing with the logistics of physically photographing each product variation, leaders like Perrier and Moët Hennessy create Digital Twins of key products (or their entire catalog). Doing this makes budget-efficiency plus high volume possible when producing product imagery, even across global markets.

The digital models guarantee visual consistency across all channels, from eCommerce platforms and social media to advertising campaigns (digital and print). Maintaining brand standards while dramatically reducing production timelines is crucial for efficient marketing ops.

Digital Twin product photography of a champagne bottle. One mesh model, one white background, one with a scenic European backdrop

Moët Hennessy uses Omi’s Digital Twin technology to promote their world-renowned champagne.

Digital Twin product photography of Perrier’s Energize, on black background next to three phone-sized adverts

Perrier also uses Digital Twins to create engaging ad images for their energy drinks. They achieve remarkable results: +9 point lift in ad recall in key demographics. Read more here.

Turn your product into a Digital Twin → create luxurious product images

It's easy with Omi's Virtual Photo Studio. And costs up to 20x less than traditional product photography.

Explore the Virtual Photo Studio

Go deeper: Omi is a virtual product photography tool that uses Digital Twin technology. With Omi, brands get a Digital Twin of their products that they can use in a Virtual Photo Studio to create imaginative or classic product shots. Users can adjust the background, lighting, composition, export ratio, and resolution of their product image — without needing a camera or a physical set. Or even a designer.

Using Omi's Virtual Photo Studio, you can turn your scenes into product videos, along with interactive 360° viewers which allow your audience to rotate your product or zoom into its finer details.

Photos and videos created entirely with Omi’s Digital Twin technology are indistinguishable from the physical thing.

Though the marketing use case strays a little from the traditional meaning of ‘Digital Twins’, this technology offers the most flexible, scalable, and cost-effective alternative to traditional photography that large numbers of retailers are adopting.

2. Construction

Construction experts used a Digital Twin as part of the process of building the One World Trade Center — the tallest building in the US.

TheArchitects created a Digital Twin to assess the building’s structural integrity and predict how it would fare during various environmental events. The twin also helps monitor the building’s lighting systems, making it a powerful tool for predictive maintenance.

3. Aerospace and automotive

Although the term Digital Twin didn’t come into regular use until around 2010, NASA’s ill-fated Apollo 13 flight is often credited as the first use of the concept. When the machine you’re maintaining suffers an explosion 200,000 miles away, how on earth can you diagnose and fix the issue?

The mission control team had more than 15 simulators — which we might think of today as Digital Twins. They modified some of these to match the explosion scenario, which helped them find the fix that brought the crew safely back to earth.

4. Healthcare

In medicine, digital twins can model organs or biological systems. For instance, Dassault Systèmes recently developed a virtual twin of the human heart, with the aim of studying drug interactions and improving the design of cardiac devices like pacemakers.

5. Urban planning

Urban planners are now building digital twins of entire cities to model traffic patterns, energy consumption, and disaster responses. For example, there’s a Digital Twin of Singapore, called Virtual Singapore.

This model is continually updated with the latest information about resources, construction, and population behavior. It’s proved invaluable for the country’s sustainable urban development — there are even plans to allow the public to access parts of the model, so they can be more involved in decision-making processes.

6. Manufacturing and engineering

Engineers at General Electric use Digital Twins to understand and predict patterns of wear and tear in their industrial facilities. They have realistic simulations of equipment including turbines, compressors, and pumps, which allows them to repair critical structures before they break.

From spaceships to your favorite online store

Using Digital Twins has been a transformative practice for engineering-related industries for many years now. But in recent years, they’ve also become transformative for online retailers looking to create product shots.

Creating a virtual version of your product or physical entity is a useful practice, whether you need to understand which machines need an oil change first, decide where to build new roads in your city — or create high quality product images for less budget.