When emergency response operations are underway, timely, shared situational awareness is critical. Field teams, operations centres, and senior decision-makers all need access to the same live information to coordinate effectively. Traditionally, that requires transporting and setting up a physical command centre, a process that can introduce delays at precisely the moment when speed and clarity matter most.
“Innovative companies should be focused on building, testing, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.”
That challenge sparked an idea at VizworX, a Calgary-based advanced software company specializing in immersive and data-driven solutions. The team saw an opportunity to reimagine how command-and-control environments could be deployed, creating a portable, virtual command centre capable of connecting teams in the field, operations centres, and senior decision-makers through a shared operational picture.
Turning that vision into reality requires solving a series of hard technical problems. How do you integrate multiple live data streams in real time? How do you design intuitive 3D interfaces that remain usable under extreme pressure? And how do you ensure system reliability when failure is not an option?
“When you deal with advanced technology, science fiction is not too far off,” says Steven Vi, Lead Solutions Engineer at VizworX. “But getting there means solving problems that don’t have established solutions.”
VizworX specializes in transforming complex datasets into interactive, immersive environments across industries such as defence, emergency response, aerospace, and critical infrastructure. Its flagship platform, the Virtual Operations Environment (VOE), combines augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, IoT data, geospatial mapping, and advanced visualization to create a portable command centre that enables distributed teams to collaborate in three-dimensional space.
“Much of the data we work with is inherently 3D,” Vi explains. “You can understand an environment far more naturally in three dimensions than on a flat screen, but building systems that can process, synchronize, and render that data in real time is a significant technical challenge.”
Each component of VOE required experimental development: new rendering approaches, novel data-ingestion pipelines, and innovative methods for multi-user collaboration in virtual environments. Many of these challenges involved genuine technical uncertainty, questions that can only be answered through iterative testing, failure, and refinement.
Those uncertainties are what define true research and development, and precisely the type of work Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit program is intended to support. The program provides incentives to companies undertaking experimental development across sectors, helping offset the costs associated with technical risk and innovation.
The SR&ED squeeze
While VizworX’s engineers are accustomed to working through complex technical challenges, the process of preparing SR&ED claims introduces a different kind of complexity. Accurately documenting experimental development requires time, context, and a working understanding of evolving tax-policy requirements: effort that can draw highly specialized engineering talent away from their core focus.
“We’re very strong on the technical side,” says Vi. “But we’re also intentional about where our time and expertise are best applied. Partnering with specialists who understand the SR&ED process allows our team to stay focused on solving hard technical problems, while ensuring the work we’re already doing is properly captured and supported.”
To that end, VizworX partnered with Boast, a SaaS platform that uses AI and automation to help innovation-driven companies prepare R&D tax credit claims. Boast’s platform consolidates financial, payroll, and project data to identify eligible R&D work, which is then reviewed by specialists who understand both software development and tax policy.
“You have a skillset that we don’t, and we’re not pretending otherwise,” says Paul Davenport, Head of Content at Boast. “But we speak both the technical language and the tax-policy language. That’s where we add value.”
The impact was primarily measured in time. Where traditional SR&ED processes can require dozens of hours of internal effort, VizworX found the process significantly streamlined, allowing engineers to remain focused on experimentation and development rather than retrospective documentation.
Boast reports it has worked with more than 1,700 companies across North America, with the majority of claims proceeding without audit. When reviews do occur, the company supports clients through the process to help preserve claim value.
Fueling the next phase of innovation
For VizworX, SR&ED credits are more than a financial mechanism. They are an enabler of continued experimentation. The company’s work routinely involves developing solutions without proven precedents, testing novel approaches, and adapting when early assumptions don’t hold.
“There’s always significant technical risk in what we do,” says Vi. “We work with clients who see the opportunity and are willing to invest. However, making effective use of government programs like SR&ED allows us to take on more ambitious challenges and move faster.”
Vi’s perspective is shaped by his background in academic research, including time at the University of Calgary, where he was immersed in theoretical R&D before transitioning into applied innovation. At VizworX, he acts as a bridge between research and real-world deployment, ensuring advanced technology is grounded in practical outcomes.
The pace is fast, the roadmap evolves constantly, and the technical challenges are substantial.
“That’s the fun of it,” Vi says.
Boast sees its role as helping innovators like VizworX maintain that focus.
“We don’t want innovative companies getting bogged down navigating tax policy,” says Davenport. “They should be focused on building, testing, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.”
For VizworX, that partnership means more time doing what it does best: turning complex, high-risk R&D into practical solutions, when they matter most.
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Images courtesy VizworX and Boast.