A design and testing simulation scales an industrial simulation across multiple different processing nodes, and generates a unified view of the distributed industrial simulation based on simulation and graphics data collected from the multiple processing nodes. The system can allow the user to designate different portions of the a digital model of an automation system to be executed on respective different distributed processing nodes, such that each portion of the model is executed on its designated node and the nodes exchange data as necessary to simulate the aggregate automation system as a whole. In order to visualize this aggregated simulation, the design and testing system unifies the distributed portions of the model into a unified three-dimensional presentation at a single node, and this unified view is animated based on data received from the nodes on which the distributed simulation is executed.