Unlimited Detail for Unreal Engine

An Unreal Engine 5 plugin that streams and renders massive Unlimited Detail (.UDS) point clouds using Nuclideon's udSDK. Datasets can be loaded from udCloud, a self-hosted server, or directly from disk.

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Contents

• Features
• Requirements
• Quick start
• Installation
• Configuring your udCloud API key
• Adding a point cloud to a scene
• Blueprint API
• Sample assets
• Building from source
• Known limitations
• Support
• Credits
• License

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Features

• Stream .UDS point clouds from udCloud, a self-hosted udSDK server, or local files
• UUDComponent — a UPrimitiveComponent you can drop on any Actor or Blueprint
• Composite scene view extension that blends point cloud color and depth with the rest of the Unreal scene
• Project Settings panel for server URL and API key
• Built against udSDK 2.6

Requirements

Unreal Engine	5.5 or newer (uses renderer internal headers that moved in 5.5)
Platforms	Windows 64-bit, Linux (Ubuntu 25.10 / GCC x64). macOS is in progress — see Known limitations.
Account	A udCloud account for an API key, or access to a self-hosted udSDK server

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Quick start

1. Get a udCloud API key from udcloud.nuclideon.com (see Configuring your udCloud API key).
2. Drop this plugin into your project's Plugins/ folder (see Installation).
3. Open the project. In Edit → Project Settings → Plugins → Unlimited Detail (udSDK), set:
   • Server Path → https://udcloud.nuclideon.com
   • API Key → paste your key
4. Restart the editor.
5. Add a UD component to any Actor, set its URL to a .UDS (e.g. https://models.nuclideon.com/Japan/0_1_0.uds), give the component a large scale, and drag the actor into your level.

That's it - Unlimited Detail will start streaming and rendering.

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Installation

Option A — Pre-built release (recommended)

1. Download the latest release from the Releases page.

2. In your Unreal project root (next to your .uproject file), create a Plugins/ folder if it doesn't already exist.

3. Extract the release archive into Plugins/ so you end up with:

   YourProject/
   ├── YourProject.uproject
   └── Plugins/
       └── UnlimitedDetail/
           ├── UnlimitedDetail.uplugin
           ├── Source/
           └── ...
   

4. Right-click your .uproject → Generate Visual Studio project files (Windows) and rebuild, or just open the project — Unreal will prompt to rebuild the plugin module.

Option B — From source

Clone this repository directly into your project's Plugins/ folder:

cd YourProject/Plugins
git clone https://github.com/Nuclideon/UnrealIntegration UnlimitedDetail

Then regenerate project files and rebuild as above. See Building from source for platform notes.

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Configuring your udCloud API key

The plugin requires a valid udSDK login before it can render. The easiest source is a udCloud account.

1. Go to udcloud.nuclideon.com and sign in.

   

2. Click your display name (top right) → API Keys.

   

3. Click Create API Key, give it a display name, optionally set an expiry, and click Create.

   

4. In the API key list, open the … menu on the new key and choose Copy API Key to Clipboard.

   

A key looks like this (this is a fake example — yours will be different):

eyJhcGlrZXlpZCI6IjAxMjM0sdf343fsdf33vsTIyMjItMzMzMy00NDQ0NTU1NTY2NjYiLCJ1c2VyaWQiOiIwMTIzNDU2NASD4334DD3dAIyLTMzMzMtNDQ0NDU1NTU2NjY2IiwidmVyc2lvbiI6IjEifQ==

Treat the key like a password. Anyone with the string can use anything your account can. Prefer keys with a short expiry where possible, and never commit them to source control.

Then in Unreal:

1. Edit → Project Settings, scroll to Plugins → Unlimited Detail (udSDK).

   

2. Set Server Path to https://udcloud.nuclideon.com (or your self-hosted server URL).

3. Paste your key into API Key.

4. Restart the editor. The plugin authenticates at startup; it will not begin rendering until a successful login.

If authentication fails, the editor shows one of:

Error	Cause
	Server Path is empty or unreachable
	The API key is malformed, expired, or revoked

Settings are stored in Config/DefaultUnlimitedDetail.ini. Because that file contains your API key, you should add it to your project's .gitignore.

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Adding a point cloud to a scene

1. In the Content Browser, right-click → Blueprint Class → Actor, and give it a name.

   

2. Open the new Blueprint. In the components panel, click + Add and search for UD.

   

3. With the UD component selected, set:

   • URL — a .UDS URL (e.g. https://models.nuclideon.com/Japan/0_1_0.uds) or absolute path to a local .UDS file
   • Scale — start large (e.g. 1000×1000×1000); most production datasets are huge in world units

   

4. Compile and save the Blueprint, then drag it into a level. The point cloud begins streaming immediately.

   

You can also add the UD component directly to a C++ Actor class — it derives from UPrimitiveComponent and behaves like any other scene component.

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Blueprint API

The UUDComponent exposes the following Blueprint-accessible members:

Member	Type	Description
URL	String (property)	Source of the .UDS to load. Setting this at runtime triggers a reload.
Get Url	function	Returns the current URL.
Set Url	function	Sets the URL and reloads the point cloud.
Refresh Point Cloud	function	Unloads and reloads the current URL — useful after server-side changes.
Reset Scale	function	Resets the component scale to a sensible default for the loaded dataset.

All functions live under the UnlimitedDetail category in the Blueprint editor.

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Sample assets

A public demo dataset is hosted at:

https://models.nuclideon.com/Japan/0_1_0.uds

Drop that URL into any UD component to verify your setup is working without uploading a dataset of your own.

You can also point the component at any absolute path to a .UDS file on local disk.

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Building from source

Windows (x64)

Out of the box. The udSDK.dll is copied from Plugins/UnlimitedDetail/Source/udSDK/lib/win_x64/ into your project's Binaries/Win64/ folder during build.

Linux (Ubuntu 25.10 / GCC x64)

Build with the standard Unreal Linux toolchain. The plugin links against libudSDK.so from Plugins/UnlimitedDetail/Source/udSDK/lib/ubuntu25.10_GCC_x64/ and bundles it into Binaries/Linux/.

macOS

Not yet supported. The udSDK distribution ships a .dmg rather than a usable .dylib; once a .dylib is extracted and the build script is filled in (see the macOS block in UnlimitedDetail.Build.cs), Mac builds will be enabled.

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Known limitations

• macOS is not yet supported. Building for Mac throws a BuildException with extraction instructions. See UnlimitedDetail.Build.cs.
• Object picking is a work in progress. Hit-testing against Unlimited Detail geometry from Blueprint/C++ is partially implemented and not yet shipping-ready.
• The UnlimitedDetail runtime module's PlatformAllowList currently lists Win64 only in UnlimitedDetail.uplugin. Add "Linux" (and "Mac" once available) to that list before packaging for those platforms.

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Support

• File issues at github.com/Nuclideon/UnrealIntegration/issues.
• Email info@nuclideon.com for licensing or commercial enquiries.

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Credits

The original Unreal Engine 4 integration this plugin is built upon was created by community members zengweicheng666 and EuleeStar — see the original UE4 repository. The Unreal Engine 5 plugin is maintained by Nuclideon.

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License

• Plugin source — see the repository's LICENSE file.
• udSDK — Nuclideon's terms apply; see udSDKLicense.md.