How PALFINGER put real-time crane simulation in the browser with Unity

A customer needs a load weighing a few tons lifted to the fifth floor of a building. Recommend a crane that can't lift the load, and you lose the customer's trust. Recommend one that's far too big, and you may lose the deal. How does a salesperson get it right in a couple of clicks? Tomasz Oniśk, Team Lead of Calculation Applications at PALFINGER, shows how PALSHOW, built with Unity WebGL (which runs 3D graphics in a browser), gives sales teams the answer in real time.

Discover how PALFINGER, a global leader in crane and lifting solutions, moved PALSHOW out of a heavy desktop application, ran its own calculation framework in the browser with Unity, and went from two or three releases a year to more than 12.

Watch the full video to learn how:

• PALFINGER’s in-house CalcApps calculation framework is built on physics and mechanical engineering. It keeps every reading correct, from reach to lifting capacity at a given position, because the numbers on screen can’t be estimated.
• Unity WebGL moved real-time calculations out of the backend: sending every change to a server was slow, so PALFINGER reused its existing calculation framework in the browser and kept only heavy calculations on the backend. The first web version launched in 2022.
• A plug-in inside a large desktop application became a web app. PALSHOW began as part of PAC Online, which users had to install, maintain, and update just to use a small part of it. It is now available to sales teams, distributors, and customers.
• PALSHOW grew to 600+ active users a month, with 1,200+ configurable cranes, 9,900+ equipment combinations in Job Planner, and 12+ releases a year, backed by 1,100+ automated tests on every code change.
• PALSHOW is built into the Product Configurator, much like configuring a new car. It also runs inside Job Planner, where operators plan a crane job before arriving on site. They use satellite maps, stabilizer settings, and a side view. That matters because some countries don’t allow crews on site until the paperwork is done.
• Sales teams who aren’t technical find PALSHOW fast and easy to use, and can check a crane in seconds when a customer comes with an unusual requirement.

This session was recorded at the Unity Industry Summit in Munich, October 2026.