CDT Plugin System: Adding Functionality to a Operational Open-Source Digital Twin Platform

The CDT Plugin System (CDT-PS) is an extension architecture for CDT, the  web-based, open-source digital twin platform developed by the Carleton  Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) and stewarded by the not-for-profit, Collab  Digital Twins (https://collabdt.org/En/). CDT-PS allows functionality to be  added to a running instance of the platform without modifying or rebuilding  the core application. Users can extend the platform's features, analysis  capabilities, and use cases, tailoring their digital twin environment to  their own needs.

The problem we set out to solve was one of access: digital-twin  technologies are largely confined to expensive, proprietary platforms. We wanted to let users—particularily smaller organizations and communities—extend  their existing digital tools to what is needed rather than being forced to  work with what a vendor provides.

The challenge was enabling that flexibility without augmenting or  rebuilding CDT's shared core. Before CDT-PS, project- or  organization-specific functionality had to be added by changing that core, which meant work competed in a single codebase and deployments drifted from the core. Organizations that self-hosted could not add functionality, because  the application source for CDT hosted instances is private and they could not  rebuild it; and bespoke customization was hard to isolate and manage per  organization. CDT-PS resolves this by connecting new functionality to CDT without touching the core codebase.

CDT-PS resolves the challenge by placing a stable boundary between CDT's shared core  and the functionality an organization adds. New capability attaches to a  running instance rather than being built into the core, so the same platform  can serve many users at once while each carries only the tools its domain  requires.

For the CIMS team, project- and client-specific work no longer accumulates  in the CDT core codebase. Each need becomes a separate plugin the team can  share or keep private, so unrelated projects stop competing in the same files and deployments no longer drift apart, shortening delivery and lowering  maintenance costs.

For a self-hosting organization, the effect is larger: it can extend the  platform on its own, even though it cannot see or rebuild the underlying  application. It adds the analysis it needs and makes it available to the  people who should have it, without a proprietary licence and without  commissioning a vendor.

Control stays with the organization. A plugin runs only when it is both  present and enabled, and enabling it is a deliberate two-level decision: an  administrator admits it for the organization, and each user chooses whether  it runs for them. Nothing appears because an update shipped it.     Because the domain-specific functionality lives outside the core, the core  stays general and dependable for everyone, while a given organization builds,  owns, and maintains the work that matters to it.