Editions: Starter vs Professional

Feature overview of realvirtual Starter and 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.

Both editions run on the same Unity version and use the same scene and prefab format. Upgrading from Starter to Professional only adds the io.realvirtual.professional package — no migration is required.

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.

Throughout the documentation, Professional-only features are marked with a (Pro) suffix in the page title and a hint box at the top of the page.

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.

See Also

• Installation

• Release Notes

• License Conditions