Teleportation exists…kind of. Over a dozen Fortune 500 companies are using the Dubuque-based company Design Mill Inc. because they take laser scans of facilities or properties and convert them into desktop or virtual reality viewing. Then they integrate technology that helps visualize that data in virtual reality, in real time. Some of their clients are in the commercial real estate, technology and manufacturing industries. “If you are sitting in your office in Des Moines and have 100 locations you are responsible, you would have a laser scan of each facility that’s been converted to virtual reality,” Nathan Greiner, President and Chief Technology Officer, explains. “So it has real-time sensor data attached to it. You just pop on your glasses and teleport yourself to that location.” Greiner says colleagues from other parts of the world can be part of the virtual meetings.

Design Mill, Inc. in Dubuque provides an emergent line of work, creating virtual reality experiences of warehouses for industrial clients to use in real estate or for employee training purposes. Like most STEM careers in Iowa, new ones like this crop up almost every day. Fortunately each summer, Iowa teachers of STEM subjects have the opportunity to keep up with the trends and immerse themselves in these innovative careers through Iowa STEM Teacher Externships , finding new ways to teach these evolving employability skills and connect what students learn to the jobs in their neighborhoods. This summer, Mike Jensen, an industrial technology teacher at Dubuque Senior High School, is linking up with Design Mill, Inc. to connect his CAD/Modeling classes to the lucrative world of virtual reality.

DUBUQUE, Iowa and CHICAGO, Illinois, February 3, 2017 –  Design Mill, Inc. (“Design Mill”) and Ideas Into Apps, LLC (“ii2a”) today announce Foresight™ (Facility Optimization and Real Estate Insights), a joint venture to transform the corporate real estate industry. Integrating emerging technology will enable the industry to realize efficiencies in analysis and management of real estate portfolios. In this venture, Design Mill and ii2a plan to leverage resources with the intent to provide customers with a single source to meet growing demand.  By combining ii2a’s real estate platform ePortfolio™ with Design Mill’s technology platforms, the two firms plan to capitalize on market demand for a more robust software solution to collect, manage, visualize, and share large amounts of real estate data quickly and easily. Currently, ePortfolio™ is designed as a secure but flexible corporate real estate decision tool providing customized management and automation of the S.I.T.R.E.P.™ (“Steps in the Real Estate Process”). Data visualization is at ePortfolio’s core, giving users the ability to select specific multilayer criteria such as locations and market alternatives and also to drill down to lease files, floor plans, images, videos, drive times, demographics, and internal/external business intelligence. Ii2a’s CEO CJ Kuehl says, “Utilizing the backbone of ePortfolio™, Foresight™ will enable clients to aggregate and access critical information in real time compared to what would have taken weeks using traditional methods.  I see Foresight™ as the unequivocal next step in disrupting the corporate real estate industry with revolutionary and automated technology.  In essence, we are flipping the S.I.T.R.E.P.™ on its head to dramatically speed up the decision process.” Recognizing synergies in data visualization initiatives, Design Mill complements ii2a offerings with technology to improve data collection, analysis, and visualization experiences.