How Digital Twins Are Changing Pre-Construction Real Estate Marketing

Written by:

Steve Marcinuk

Date:

22 Oct 2025

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The real estate industry has long faced a core challenge: enabling buyers to visualize properties that have not yet been built. While traditional marketing has used floor plans, renderings, and model units, more developers are now adopting interactive digital twins to help buyers better understand future properties.

SmartPixel, a Montreal-based company founded in 2014, is a leader in this field, creating interactive digital representations of pre-construction properties. These digital twins allow potential buyers to explore aspects ranging from unit layouts to sunrise views from balconies.

“Really, it’s helping people imagine their future home from outside to inside,” says Hadrien Laporte, founder and CEO of SmartPixel. “A lot of people don’t have that luxury to be able to project themselves into a space or understand what the view is going to be, whether you’re purchasing on floor 10 versus floor 14.”

From Interactive Displays to Gaming Engines

Laporte’s entry into real estate technology began with an artistic upbringing, both his parents were painters and sculptors. After studying audiovisual and multimedia in Colombia and spending some time as a DJ, he returned to Montreal in 2009 to start a business focused on interactive presentations for various industries.

Early technical challenges required creative solutions. “I remember I had to combine specific film that I would buy, that I would glue on glass, and then overlay the glass on an LCD monitor,” Laporte recalls of creating large touchscreens when they were uncommon. “It would make a huge, very heavy sandwich of a 44-46 inch screen.”

The shift to real estate came after a project for Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, where SmartPixel created interactive panoramic displays of the city. A real estate developer who saw the installation approached Laporte about adapting the technology for future properties.

This led to a partnership with Unity programmers to use gaming engine technology, a new approach in 2014. “Working with Unity in 2014, we were among the first people to use this outside of gaming,” Laporte says.

Market Dynamics Drive Adoption

Over the past decade, SmartPixel has worked on more than 300 projects worldwide, marketing over 100,000 residential units. The company’s work across different markets shows that adoption patterns often reflect local real estate conditions.

“The trends globally, in terms of what real estate developers need, vary a lot depending on how healthy the market is,” Laporte observes. In rapidly selling markets like Toronto during its boom, developers had little need for advanced sales tools. In slower markets or during downturns, interactive visualization becomes more critical.

Montreal was an ideal starting point due to active high-rise development and moderate competition. British Columbia followed a similar pattern, with digital twins quickly becoming essential for developers. SmartPixel has since expanded internationally, with a growing presence in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Comprehensive Digital Environments

Modern digital twins go far beyond basic 3D models. SmartPixel’s platform offers more than 60 customizable features. Buyers can virtually stand on balconies to check views, adjust the sun’s position to simulate different times of day, filter units by bedroom count, and calculate distances to nearby amenities.

“You can look at everything around the environment, where are the schools, where are the bus stops, where’s the metro station, where are the restaurants,” Laporte explains.

The technology also models entire neighborhoods, not just the building itself. By capturing the context of the existing environment, whether urban or rural, buyers get a clearer sense of the lifestyle a property offers.

Technical Innovation and Competitive Advantages

SmartPixel maintains its competitive edge through proprietary technology. One co-founder serves as a graphics engineer, allowing the company to develop its own graphics engine within Unity that calculates lighting differently.

“We have a level of quality that is similar to what Unreal outputs,” Laporte says, referring to the industry-standard gaming engine used by many competitors.

Recent advances have made production more efficient. Access to photogrammetric data-drone-captured imagery assembled into 3D models, has accelerated environment creation. “To embed photogrammetric data is a game changer for us because it speeds up our production process,” Laporte notes.

Immersive Presentation Formats

SmartPixel optimizes applications for various presentation formats, including large displays and immersive environments. The company has created installations with eight screens side-by-side and developed solutions for immersive “igloos,” projection domes where visitors can experience VR-like environments without headsets.

“Developers want to see more and more unique features. It’s not just about showing on a regular screen, but about how you’re going to be interacting with this,” Laporte says.

While virtual reality once generated significant attention, its adoption in real estate remains limited. Still, SmartPixel partners with companies offering advanced VR experiences, including “4D VR” where users can physically walk through virtual spaces while wearing headsets.

Integration with Sales Processes

SmartPixel’s technology integrates with customer relationship management systems to support the entire sales process. Partners like Onyx provide client qualification, identity validation, real-time inventory management, and AI analytics, while SmartPixel focuses on visualization.

“We’re not the expert of sales-driven features. We’re the expert of visualization, but we connect to those platforms, and then we can show this data in a way that people understand it in seconds,” Laporte says.

This integration helps address a key challenge in pre-construction sales: enabling buyers to make informed decisions about premium features. For example, the technology can show whether paying more for a higher floor actually results in better views or amenities.

Operational Efficiency Through Technology

Despite handling three times more projects than several years ago, SmartPixel has reduced its team from a peak of 65 employees to just over 30. Improved workflows, a better technology stack, and strategic partnerships have contributed to this efficiency.

“We become more and more compatible with all sorts of files and talent out there,” Laporte says. The company works with architects, designers, and other partners worldwide, creating a distributed production network without traditional outsourcing constraints.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to speed up certain processes. While AI cannot yet manage the precise architectural modeling required for digital twins, it assists with texturing and environmental details such as light posts and street furniture.

“We do use AI to speed up different things, for example, texturing or placing props in the environment,” Laporte notes. “We’re very eager to look at how AI is going to evolve in the next months because there’s something new coming every week.”

Market Positioning and Value Proposition

In a market where quality, service, and price drive success, SmartPixel’s decade of experience is a key advantage. Many early competitors have left the industry, while newer entrants often lack the comprehensive features and relationships SmartPixel has built.

The company offers flexible solutions, from rapid apartment rental visualizations completed in weeks to luxury developments requiring detailed interior and amenity modeling. This scalability enables SmartPixel to serve clients across a range of budgets and project types.

“We have to be able to play around with the budget that the client has, depending on how much revenue they’re expecting to generate with their property,” Laporte explains.

Future Developments

Looking forward, SmartPixel is developing what Laporte describes as “something very big that will hopefully elevate our business model and our opportunities in the market.” Details remain confidential, but the company expects to launch this initiative by mid-2026.

SmartPixel continues to expand into new markets, with strong growth in the Middle East, and is consistently upgrading its features and visual quality.

For real estate developers navigating increasingly competitive markets and higher buyer expectations, interactive digital twins are becoming essential sales tools. Laporte’s experience shows that success in this area demands not only technical skill but also a deep understanding of market dynamics and the flexibility to adapt as conditions evolve.

The shift from gluing film onto LCD screens to building photorealistic digital environments reflects broader changes in real estate marketing. For developers willing to invest in these technologies, the benefits extend beyond individual sales to stronger brand positioning and greater differentiation in crowded markets.