Alimak

Alimak manufactures industrial construction hoists. They wanted an interactive 360 product tour of their Scando 650A model to use as a marketing, sales, and e-learning tool. The tour needed to let users explore the machine in detail, with hotspots and animations highlighting specific features and parts.

The starting point was raw CAD files from the manufacturer. Every measurement had to match the real product exactly.

I handled all 3D work across both phases of the project. A colleague built the web tour in Pano2VR.

The CAD files were extremely heavy. Industrial models at that level of detail contain thousands of components, many of which are internal parts that are never visible in the final render. The first task was figuring out what to keep and what to cut without losing visual accuracy. Getting that wrong would either tank performance or create visible gaps in the geometry, so I worked through the files methodically, prioritizing what the camera would actually see.

Once the geometry was clean, I rebuilt all materials from scratch in Blender to reach photorealism. No textures came with the CAD files, so every surface, metal finish, rubber seal, and painted panel had to be created by hand.

For phase 1 (Scando 650A), I rendered a full set of 360-degree panoramas plus separate renders of individual parts and animations used as Pano2VR patches inside the tour. Render times were significant at that resolution and scene complexity. To speed things up, I set up a local render farm using all the available PCs in the office, distributing frames across machines to bring turnaround times down to something workable.

Phase 2 expanded the scope to 6 different Alimak models. I built one shared environment and adapted it for each machine, keeping the visual language consistent across the full tour.

Two 360 interactive product tours built in Pano2VR, with all visual assets created in Blender. Phase 1 covers the Scando 650A, shown above, and is publicly accessible on the Alimak website. Phase 2 covers 6 models in a shared environment and is used as an internal sales and e-learning tool; it's not public, so it isn't shown here.

The client was impressed by the realism of the renders and the level of detail in the final tour. That reception is what brought them back for phase 2.

For me, the main takeaway was learning how to work with industrial CAD data. Knowing what geometry to prioritize and what to strip out is a skill you only develop by doing it badly first.