Five years ago, no one could have predicted what the world would look like today, including the pace at which spatial visualisation would evolve.

Thus, building design company CADwalk and the University of South Australia (UniSA) took an incredible leap of faith when they partnered to develop a technology that allowed CADwalk’s customers to visualise the design of high-value infrastructure projects.

With support from IMCRC, CADwalk and UniSA completed five year-long research and development (R&D) sprints that explored the use of technologies such as augmented, virtual and mixed reality.

The R&D resulted in CADwalk Mini – a commercially ready product that visualises paper-based plans and enables users and their collaborators to experience the design using virtual models.

The portable, integrated hardware and software system can showcase the design and layout of a new factory or building, vastly improving users’ understanding of the design by enabling immersive interaction with the environment.

“By bringing 2D building plans to life, CADwalk Mini helps our customers make better decisions about their design, ergonomic and workflow requirements,” said Gerhard Kimenkowski, CADwalk Founder.

“IMCRC’s collaborative and flexible approach to research collaboration enabled us to collectively pursue different ideas and the stage-gate process helped us assess individual research outcomes and adjust future milestones accordingly.”

Professor Bruce Thomas, Research Lead and Director of the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments, said the challenge forced the team to stretch their thinking and adopt a commercially viable mindset.

“As part of the application process, IMCRC required us to think future-state and describe the research and commercial outcomes, and work back from that,” he said.

“This manufacturing-led approach to innovation enabled us to translate the research into a commercial product, optimising at every phase of the project.

“IMCRC was very accommodating of us throughout the project, providing their unique insights and helping us integrate with and learn from industry.” Gerhard agreed.

“We’re hugely appreciative of the support that IMCRC provided. The team was the backbone of this project.”

IMCRC’s support was critical to the
development of CADwalk Mini. The team shared our vision and understood the requirements for commercial success.

Gerhard (Kim) Kimenkowski
Founder, CADwalk