IRIX is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system and the industry-standard OpenGL graphics system.
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by Jim Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.
Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya, is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interactive 3D applications, animated films, TV series, and visual effects.
Alias Systems Corporation, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was a software company that produced high-end 3D graphics software. Alias was eventually bought by Autodesk.
Autodesk Alias is a family of computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design for generating class A surfaces using Bézier surface and non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) modeling method.
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. A subsidiary of Microsoft in the 1990s, it was sold to Avid Technology, who would eventually sell the name and assets of Softimage's 3D-animation business to Autodesk.
Autodesk Media and Entertainment is a division of Autodesk which offers animation and visual effects products, and was formed by the combination of multiple acquisitions. In 2018, the company began operating as a single operating segment and reporting unit.
Autodesk Softimage, or simply Softimage was a 3D computer graphics application, for producing 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling, and computer animation. Now owned by Autodesk and formerly titled Softimage|XSI, the software has been predominantly used in the film, video game, and advertising industries for creating computer generated characters, objects, and environments.
The Advanced Visualizer (TAV), a 3D graphics software package, was the flagship product of Wavefront Technologies from the 1980s until the 1990s.
Engineering Animation, Inc., or EAI, was a services and software company based in Ames, Iowa, United States. It remained headquartered there from its incorporation in 1990 until it was acquired in 2000 by Unigraphics Solutions, Inc., now a subsidiary of the German technology multinational Siemens AG. During its existence, EAI produced animations to support litigants in court, wrote and sold animation and visualization software, and developed a number of multimedia medical and computer game titles. Part of EAI's business now exists in a spin-off company, Demonstratives.
Dynamation was a 3D computer graphics particle generator program sold by Wavefront to run on SGI's IRIX operating system as part of The Advanced Visualizer. The core software was originally developed by Jim Hourihan while at Santa Barbara Studios, a visual effects company owned by effects pioneer John Grower. The software was licensed to Wavefront Technologies in 1992, and passed through to the merged company Alias/Wavefront. It was introduced as a product at SIGGRAPH in 1993. In 1996, Jim Hourihan received a Scientific and Engineering Award for the primary design and development of Dynamation.
Bill Kovacs was a pioneer of commercial computer animation technology.
Rob Burgess is a Canadian executive in the technology industry. He was the chief executive officer of Macromedia Inc. from 1996 to 2005 and chairman from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of Alias Research from 1991 to 1995.
William Kroyer is an American director of animation and computer graphics commercials, short films, movie titles, and theatrical films. He and Jerry Rees were the main animators for the CGI sequences in Tron. He is currently the head of the Digital Arts department at Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University.
Softimage|3D was a high-end 3D graphics application developed by Softimage, Co., which was used predominantly in the film, broadcasting, gaming, and advertising industries for the production of 3D animation. It was superseded by Softimage XSI in 2000.
Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal of specialized hardware and software has been developed, with the displays of most devices being driven by computer graphics hardware. It is a vast and recently developed area of computer science. The phrase was coined in 1960 by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, or typically in the context of film as computer generated imagery (CGI). The non-artistic aspects of computer graphics are the subject of computer science research.
Eclipse was a professional 2D image editing program available on Silicon Graphics and Windows workstations. Designed to manipulate high-resolution images like digitized movie frames and photographs for print, it offered color correction tools, image processing effects, rudimentary paint features, and spline-based drawing and masking.
The history of computer animation began as early as the 1940s and 1950s, when people began to experiment with computer graphics – most notably by John Whitney. It was only by the early 1960s when digital computers had become widely established, that new avenues for innovative computer graphics blossomed. Initially, uses were mainly for scientific, engineering and other research purposes, but artistic experimentation began to make its appearance by the mid-1960s – most notably by Dr Thomas Calvert. By the mid-1970s, many such efforts were beginning to enter into public media. Much computer graphics at this time involved 2-dimensional imagery, though increasingly as computer power improved, efforts to achieve 3-dimensional realism became the emphasis. By the late 1980s, photo-realistic 3D was beginning to appear in film movies, and by mid-1990s had developed to the point where 3D animation could be used for entire feature film production.
Cranston/Csuri Productions (CCP) was an American computer animation company based in Columbus, Ohio. It was founded in 1981 by artist Chuck Csuri and investor Robert Cranston Kanuth to commercially exploit computer animation technology created by Ohio State University's Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG). Several of the CGRG researchers recruited into the company went on to notable VFX and animation careers, including John Berton and Steve Martino.
