SynTerra 2.0: UE5 Plug-In For Creating Real-World Locations From Satellite Data

The Story Behind SynTerra

One year ago, we released the first version of the SynTerra plug-in for Unreal Engine, which enables rapid generation of landscapes and virtual worlds (synthetic environments) based on geospatial data for any location on the planet. Over the past year, we have significantly overhauled the functionality, improved operational stability, enhanced the user interface, and updated the database of satellite imagery, digital elevation models, and aerial photography. To date, nearly a thousand user accounts have been registered.

Based on numerous user requests and feedback, version 1.9 introduced the ability to select high-resolution layers. This required implementing additional functionality and updating the aerial photography database for the eastern coast region of Australia.

At the same time, we understand that users need the ability to use their own data for locations required to generate content in their projects. For this purpose, we have released SynTerra 2.0 – a version that fundamentally changes the approach to creating virtual worlds and generating landscapes using custom data.

SynTerra 2.0 solves a key problem: it enables the creation of environmental landscapes in Unreal Engine 5 projects without the need for a constant internet connection, using the user's own satellite data and aerial imagery.

Limitations Of Traditional Approaches

Our team originally came from the aerospace industry, specifically, flight simulators, long before terms like "digital twins" even existed. In the early 2000s, we were severely limited in our choice of software tools, including 3D engines. At the time, Unreal Engine and Unity did not yet support 64-bit precision (double-precision floating-point), which in turn seriously limited the ability to create large-scale territories matching the size of countries, continents, or even the entire planet. The market only offered niche products such as Presagis, VBS, MAK VR Forces, and Prepar3D.

However, as soon as the popular Unity and Unreal Engine platforms gained the capability to create large-scale territories, two giants from the GIS industry divided the market with this technology: ESRI ArcGIS and Cesium (now part of Bentley Systems). Despite the ability of the ArcGIS and Cesium plug-ins to load the entire Earth into a project, many users encountered a series of problems. The main drawbacks are listed below:

The Earth is always streamed in an online format and, accordingly, cannot be edited directly within the project. On one hand, this is a logical approach to the task, as loading the entire planet into a project is indeed impossible. However, not all users require this: most work only with a specific area.

The next drawback stems directly from the previous one: the inability to store a selected area of the Earth directly within the project prevents the full integration of content onto the landscape, such as surface materials, vegetation, buildings, urban infrastructure, and other elements.

Such projects are directly dependent on internet connection speed and cannot be launched without network access. This limitation is especially critical for organizations with high cybersecurity requirements, where corporate networks are isolated from the global internet.

If users wanted to create a project independently without using those plug-ins, with a landscape based on real geoinformation data and an actual location, they would need expertise in GIS, access to satellite data, and the configuration of numerous parameters both within the data itself and the project. Consequently, executing such a task would require significant resources: niche GIS specialists, a large number of hours for development, optimization, and configuration. Based on our experience, creating such a project used to require months of work by a team of at least five people and a substantial budget for purchasing satellite data.

Therefore, drawing on our team's experience and understanding of all the pain points in generating a virtual synthetic environment in Unreal Engine for users outside this rather niche field, we developed a user-friendly interface with maximum process automation. As a result, SynTerra users simply need to open the plug-in, select the desired area they want to see in the project, and click the Generate button. That's all! The result can be seen immediately in the project.

Key Advantages Of SynTerra 2.0

In SynTerra 2.0, we have added the capability to load custom user data. This data is automatically recognized based on its georeferencing metadata and is generated using the same one-click Generate method described earlier. The SynTerra 2.0 plug-in can accept satellite imagery and aerial photography of any resolution quality.

For users who do not possess their own data, an additional high-resolution layer from our publicly accessible database is also available. Currently, we utilize open data for the Australian territory from the Geoscience Australia portal and plan to integrate data for New Zealand from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

When the "Add microtextures" option is selected, an additional layer based on Sentinel-2 Land Cover Classification is applied. This allows for a smooth transition between satellite imagery and typical ground textures as you zoom in toward the Earth's surface. This helps avoid the pixelation of surfaces typical of landscapes created using satellite data alone.

Performance optimization in SynTerra is fully implemented using Unreal Engine's native tools, specifically leveraging Virtual Textures and Nanite technology.

In the current version of SynTerra 2.0, the ability to generate urban environments is not yet available. We are actively developing this feature for a future release, which will include Urban Environment Generation, adding buildings based on OpenStreetMap data, similar to ESRI CityEngine, and Procedural Vegetation, an algorithm for placing vegetation using a pre-built SpeedTree library.

Applications in Automotive & Robotics

Unlike many other synthetic environment generators, SynTerra uses real geospatial data based on actual coordinates and the WGS 84 standard. This enables modeling and scenario simulation for real geographic locations.

Furthermore, because the plug-in allows users to load their own data and generate terrain with virtually no limits on aerial image resolution quality, it empowers them to create high-precision environments that accurately display road networks, road markings, and all associated semantic details.

This automated approach allows users to rapidly prototype locations for simulators used in training AI for Level 4 ADAS of autonomous driving vehicles.

Other Use Cases

One unexpected application of the SynTerra plugin has been in the AECO industry. Many architectural design bureaus, real estate, and construction companies use our tool to create a base terrain model, into which they later integrate their BIM structures. A prime example of this is our own project, 7Park in Miami, which you can explore on our website.

How To Monetize Your Dataset

We are currently actively expanding our satellite, aerial orthophoto, and Digital Elevation Model databases. In a pilot phase, we are launching a new data collaboration model. This approach enables users not only to create virtual worlds from geospatial data but also to monetize their own datasets.

To participate, users simply need to submit their data to our official email. Following a moderation process to ensure the data meets our established standards, it will be integrated into the SynTerra database. The contributor's account will then be upgraded to Creator status, granting access to analytics on download counts and the revenue generated from the use of their provided data. Thereafter, any user will be able to select these premium datasets directly within the plug-in, purchase the required tiles, and generate their terrain.

What Makes SynTerra's Approach Different

Generating synthetic environments from geospatial data, such as satellite orthophotos and aerial photography, is a very niche area, particularly for real-time 3D engines like Unreal Engine, which has historically been a tool primarily for game development.

Initially, in the early 2000s, professional simulators always included dedicated tools for building synthetic environments from geospatial data. For instance, MultiGen Paradigm offered Creator Terrain Studio and TerraVista for the Vega Prime 3D engine by Presagis. For VBS, the tool TerraTools exists, and so on.

However, there has been significant recent growth in the professional use of Unreal Engine, both for developing digital twins of urban environments and for building high-fidelity professional simulators. These emerging trends create a demand for tools like SynTerra. It fills this exact niche, and as of today, there is no direct equivalent for Unreal Engine.

Its simple, mesh-based approach for rapidly generating synthetic terrains enables developers to utilize the full suite of Unreal Engine's native tools to enhance the quality and detail of any selected area on Earth.

What's Next

Based on feedback from our users and developers, we are actively evolving our product daily, continuously adding new features and expanding our library of 3D assets. Throughout 2026, we plan to introduce a range of additional functions and tools designed to enhance the quality and level of detail of the synthetic environment.

Key development priorities include:

• Automating user‑content monetization for tiles. Considering that we currently provide access to over 250,000 tiles across the entire Earth, this represents a vast market for developers and users in the field of environmental development;
• Implementing a region‑based vegetation system using land‑cover classification, for example, adding gum trees in Australia, mangrove trees in South East Asia, palm trees in Florida, etc;
• Integrating urban environments, including buildings, road networks, and related infrastructure.

The successful implementation of these features will culminate in the release of SynTerra 3.0. However, we are not limited to this roadmap and will continue to drive improvements based on ongoing feedback from our growing community.

SynTerra 2.0 is available on Fab.

Pavel Entin, CEO at SynPlanet

Interview conducted by 80 Level