The UQ VisLab recently hosted a visit and discussion bringing together heritage and built-environment specialists with UQ colleagues. The group included Lavinia Dack, together with Nick Laxton, from the Queensland Department of Housing and Public Works; Russell Vine from Cross River Rail; Fred Fialho Teixeira, Director of UQ VisLab, and Qianbin Xu from the VisLab; Ashley Paine, Co-Director of the ATCH Research Centre, and Stephanie Wyeth from UQ’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning; and Liam McNamara and Chloe Budd from UQ Strategic Partnerships – Government and Industry.
During the visit, Fred Fialho Teixeira introduced the group to research and technologies being developed and explored through the VisLab, including the Digital Twin of UQ St Lucia Campus, 3D point-cloud data, BIM, spatial twins and immersive visualisation. The demonstrations highlighted how different forms of spatial and built-environment information can be brought together within interactive 3D environments, from campus-scale digital representations to more detailed spatial models and data-rich environments.
The visit also provided an opportunity to discuss these approaches in relation to Boggo Road Gaol and broader heritage contexts. The conversation considered how 3D visualisation, digital twins and immersive environments could help connect spatial, historical and temporal information, offering new ways to explore and communicate heritage places, their changing conditions and the different layers of information associated with them.
More broadly, the discussion highlighted areas where the VisLab can support research and engagement through data visualisation, immersive experiences, real-time and spatial data integration, 3D model visualisation and digital-twin workflows. These capabilities provide different ways of bringing complex datasets together, examining spatial relationships and making information more accessible through interactive and experiential environments.
Following the VisLab visit, the group continued the conversation at UQ’s Global Change Institute, discussing Boggo Road Gaol and broader areas of shared interest. The session provided an opportunity to connect perspectives across heritage, architecture, planning, digital technologies and the built environment, and to identify possibilities for further discussion.
Hero Image: HM Prison Boggo Road, August 1965. Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 21967. Public domain.
