From major infrastructure projects and healthcare systems to emergency response and urban environments, decision-makers increasingly rely on large volumes of complex data. UQ researchers are combining digital twins, AI-enabled analytics, immersive visualisation and spatial intelligence technologies to transform that data into meaningful insights, helping people understand, test and improve decisions before they are implemented in the real world.
What's the problem?
Critical infrastructure, cities, healthcare environments and emergency systems are becoming increasingly complex. Organisations must make decisions using large amounts of spatial, operational and environmental data, yet traditional methods of visualisation can make it difficult to fully understand how different systems interact or how decisions may play out in practice.
As digital information becomes more detailed and interconnected, there is growing demand for tools that allow people to explore, simulate and evaluate scenarios before taking action in the real world.
What's UQ's solution?
Led by Associate Professor Fred Fialho Teixeira, UQ's Visualisation Laboratory (VisLab) brings together digital twins, immersive technologies, computational design, spatial intelligence and AI-enabled analytical approaches to create interactive environments where complex systems can be explored, tested and understood.
The VisLab transforms large and complex datasets into immersive visualisations that support research, design, planning and decision-making. Through the combined use of spatial data, digital modelling and real-time simulation, researchers can investigate complex challenges across the built environment, infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, healthcare and emergency-response sectors.
Applications include digital twins for infrastructure and urban environments, immersive training systems for emergency-response scenarios, augmented-reality supported design processes, and simulation environments that help evaluate human interactions with complex systems.
What's the impact?
By turning data into shared visual intelligence, digital twins, AI-enabled analysis and immersive simulations can improve understanding, communication and decision-making across a wide range of industries. Researchers and industry partners can test different scenarios, evaluate risks and explore alternative solutions in virtual environments before implementing changes in the real world.
The work supports more informed decisions in areas such as infrastructure planning, emergency preparedness, healthcare design, advanced manufacturing and urban development. It also helps bridge the gap between technical experts, decision-makers and the wider community by making complex information more accessible and easier to understand.
Did you know?
UQ VisLab supports research across fields as diverse as digital-twin infrastructure modelling, emergency-response training, healthcare system design, robotics, augmented reality and advanced manufacturing, all using immersive technologies to better understand complex real-world challenges.
Led by
This work brings together researchers from the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, UQ Cyber Research Centre and collaborators across engineering, infrastructure, design and digital technologies.
UQ Research Team
| AI Research Strength | Human-Centred AI |
|---|---|
| Industry Portfolio | Advancing AI |
| Key Publication | Teixeira, F.F., Mashaly, I., Shafiei, M., Xu, Q., Zhu, G. and Karlovsek, J. (2024). Integrating digital twins in urban sustainability: a framework for university campus applications. In Digital Twin Computing for Urban Intelligence. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8483-7_9 |