Behind the Scenes: Dialogue about Imagio® in Autodesk VRED

Imagio^®: Covestro's digital platform for polycarbonate material twins is now integrated into Autodesk VRED, a software for 3D visualization and virtual prototype creation. A milestone for designers in the automotive sector. How did this cooperation come about? CovestroNet spoke about this with Pascal Seifert, Technical Product Manager in the Automotive and Conceptual Design Team at Autodesk VRED, and Dr. Tobias Rausch, Digital Sampling – Global Color & Design at Covestro.

Question 1: Dear Pascal, dear Tobias: Imagio^® is now integrated into Autodesk VRED and thus available very early in the automotive design process. How did this come about? 

Tobias: "The idea came quite naturally – we saw how designers were working more and more digitally, but still had to request physical samples. This costs time, money, and doesn't match the increasingly faster pace of automotive development. Material manufacturers like us, on the other hand, have been dealing with the topic of digital material twins for a long time. At Covestro, we started with this in 2019 and have already digitized our polycarbonate materials with Imagio^® in a photorealistic way. It was clear to us: These belong directly where design decisions are made – in the major design software platforms themselves." 

Pascal: "The AxF format for measured materials, which is provided in Imagio^®, has been available in Autodesk VRED for some time. However, Covestro's support, especially from Tobias, was crucial for implementing the translucent AxF materials in Autodesk VRED 2026. The devil is often in the details, and only through collaboration with a material expert could we ensure that all material properties are correctly reproduced in the rendering. When we learned that Covestro provides a huge library of photorealistic and measured material twins with Imagio^®, it was immediately clear to us that we needed to make these accessible to our shared customers in a direct and simple way. Access to the Imagio^® library directly from Autodesk VRED allows designers, for example, to immediately see how surfaces would look in a car interior without having to download individual files in a time-consuming process."

Question 2: What were the biggest technical challenges during the integration? 

Pascal: "The AxF material model provided by Imagio^® is quite complex, and until now, not all features were supported in Autodesk VRED. So the challenge was first to complete the material model. The implementation of the Imagio^® library via a so-called webshop in Autodesk VRED was quite smooth, as the technology required for this was already available in Autodesk VRED, and Imagio^®'s operating concept fits seamlessly into our concept." 

Tobias: "That's right, Pascal – and from our side, it was crucial that we prepare our complete polycarbonate portfolio so that it fits seamlessly into your environment. We had to ensure that a designer using your Autodesk VRED tool could drag and drop our material onto a dashboard and immediately see: 'This is exactly how it would look.' Thanks to the continuous exchange between our teams, we've managed it very well. The positive feedback after just one month speaks for itself."

Question 3: What does this integration mean for the future of automotive design? How might it continue? 

Tobias: "With this integration, we enable designers to discover the versatility of polycarbonate in early development phases in an uncomplicated and accessible way. This fits perfectly with designers' working methods and expectations nowadays. It also accelerates the process: If I can select the most suitable material on screen, I save a lot of time as a designer and avoid previously necessary coordination with material manufacturers, of which we were always just one among many. This also aligns with the increasingly shorter development time for cars, which has been reduced from seven years to now just two years, requiring parallel rather than sequential work. For us as a material manufacturer, it's incredibly valuable to be present so early in the design process - because material decisions are made during the design process. So we need to be present there, and we are." 

Pascal: "Tobias mentioned an important point - the parallelization of development and the speed advantages of such a digital and high-quality offering are crucial. What we're seeing here is just the beginning. Where designers can already see a material like polycarbonate photorealistically in our software and use it for initial optical simulations, in the future we might also be able to add simulations for mechanical properties or model aging processes of a material. Imagine: designers test not only how the material looks 'new,' but also how it might look after ten years of parking in the open air, and can consider this in their decision-making - all digital, all available with just a few clicks. This will fundamentally change the way car manufacturers develop their vehicles." 

The integration is globally available from August 7, 2025 – a step that shows how Covestro is helping shape the future of automotive design.