In the time that someone takes to read this abstract, another could solve a detective puzzle if only they had enough quantitative evidence on which to prove their suspicions. But also, one could use visualisation and computational tools like a microscope, to seek a new cure for cancer or predict hospitalisation prevention. In this presentation, we will demonstrate new visual analytics techniques that use various mixed reality approaches that link simulations with collaborative, complex and interactive data exploration, placing the human-in-the-loop. In the recent days, thanks to advances in graphics hardware and compute power (especially GPGPU and modern Big Data / HPC infrastructures), the opportunities are immense, especially in improving our understanding of complex models that represent the real- or hybrid-worlds. Use cases presented will be drawn from ongoing research at CSIRO, and Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre) using world class GPU clusters and visualisation capabilities.