Editions: Starter vs Professional

realvirtual.io ships in two editions that share the same core engine and the same project format. Starter gives you the complete simulation core — drives, sensors, transport, grippers, MUs and logic — everything you need to build and run a digital twin. Professional adds the productivity tools, the full industrial interface library, robotics, the HMI suite and realvirtual WEB on top.

A project always opens in either edition. Anything you build in Starter keeps working when you move up to Professional — Professional is purely additive.

Which edition do I need?

Starter — Build and simulate machines and lines, define logic, import geometry, and publish to Windows or WebGL. Ideal for concept design, training and standalone simulations.
Professional — Add virtual commissioning against real PLCs and robot controllers, CAD import with live update, robot inverse kinematics, performance tooling for large assemblies, the 3D-HMI suite, multiplayer and realvirtual WEB.

Core simulation

Feature	Starter	Professional
Drives, CAM & Kinematic	✅	✅
Sensors & Measurement	✅	✅
TransportSurface & Guided Transport	✅	✅
Chain & Chain Element	✅	✅
MU, Source & Sink	✅	✅
Picking & Placing (Grip, Gripper, Fixer, Pattern)	✅	✅
Changing MUs (Material, Switcher, Part, Cutter)	✅	✅
PathTracer	—	✅
KinematicMU	—	✅
Volume Tracking	—	✅

Logic & interaction

Feature	Starter	Professional
Unity Scripting	✅	✅
Behavior Graph	✅	✅
LogicSteps	✅	✅
Recorder	✅	✅
3D Buttons & Screen Overlay Buttons	✅	✅
Lamp, Interact3D, KeyboardMove	✅	✅
Tooltip	—	✅
Scene Selectables	—	✅
State Statistics	—	✅
HMI Components (Tab, Pushbutton, Switch, Value, Slider, …)	—	✅
ModelZoo	—	✅

Editor tools

Feature	Starter	Professional
Hierarchy Window & Quick Edit	✅	✅
Demo Scenes Browser	✅	✅
Model Checker	✅	✅
Recent Items	—	✅
Move Pivot Points	—	✅
Selection Window	—	✅
Material Window	—	✅
Measurement	—	✅
Kinematic Tool	—	✅
Clean Restart	—	✅
Duplicate Finder	—	✅
Mesh Tools	—	✅
Group Assignment Tool	—	✅

CAD & performance

Feature	Starter	Professional
Importing & Exporting (FBX, STEP via Unity, …)	✅	✅
Cadenas parts4cad	✅	✅
CADLink (direct CAD import)	—	✅
CAD Checker	—	✅
CAD Updater	—	✅
Combine Meshes	—	✅
Mesh Optimizer	—	✅
Hierarchy Cleanup	—	✅
Create Prefab	—	✅
Performance Optimizer	—	✅

Robotics

Feature	Starter	Professional
Robot Inverse Kinematics	—	✅
Robot Program Export (Beta)	—	✅

Collaboration & web

Feature	Starter	Professional
Publishing (Windows, WebGL)	✅	✅
Multiplayer	—	✅
realvirtual WEB (browser 3D-HMI)	—	✅

Interfaces

The signal layer and the basic interface tooling are in Starter; the industrial protocol and controller interfaces are Professional.

Feature	Starter	Professional
Signal Manager & Signal Tools	✅	✅
Signal Importer / Exporter	✅	✅
S7 TCP	✅	✅
FMI	✅	✅
OpenCommissioning	✅	✅
Igus Rebel	✅	✅
Custom Interfaces (FastInterface)	✅	✅
OPC UA	—	✅
Modbus	—	✅
MQTT	—	✅
EthernetIP	—	✅
UDP	—	✅
Websocket	—	✅
TwinCAT (ADS)	—	✅
TwinCAT HMI	—	✅
PLCSIM Advanced	—	✅
Siemens Simit	—	✅
Simit Shared Memory	—	✅
Bosch Rexroth ctrlX	—	✅
Festo AX Controls / PLCnext	—	✅
SEW SimInterface	—	✅
Simulink	—	✅
Windmod Y200	—	✅

Robot controllers

Feature	Starter	Professional
ABB RobotStudio	—	✅
KUKA	—	✅
Fanuc	—	✅
Denso Robotics	—	✅
Mitsubishi McpX	—	✅
Universal Robots	—	✅
Keba	—	✅
RoboDK	—	✅
Wandelbots Nova	—	✅
RFSuite	—	✅

Updates & support

Feature	Starter	Professional
Customer Portal	✅	✅
Login & Download Updates (User Hub, UPM Registry)	—	✅

Upgrading from Starter to Professional

To move from Starter to Professional, add the io.realvirtual.professional package next to your existing io.realvirtual.starter package — follow the same steps as in the Installation guide. Your scenes, prefabs and references are preserved automatically.