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| Type | Software Developer |
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| Founded | Fractal Design Corp (1991); Harvard Systems Corp (1987) |
| Headquarters | Carpinteria, CA |
| Footnotes /references Rebranded Viewpoint Corporation in 1999 | |
MetaCreations was a computer software company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and Kai's Power Tools.
MetaCreations was founded in 1997 by the mergers of MetaTools, Fractal Design Corporation, Ray Dream, Specular, and Real Time Geometry Lab (RTG). [1] John Wilczak and Mark Zimmer led the initial operations. Wilczak left the company in 1998. The software and GUI designer, highly valued creative head for his contributions to the public brand appearance, [2] Kai Krause (MetaTools, Goo-Series, KPT, ...) left shortly afterwards in 1999.
In 1999, MetaCreations invested itself heavily in the newly developed '3d on the Web' technology "MetaStream" and began restructuring from graphics applications to Internet technology. MetaCreations formed a subsidiary company called MetaStream, acquired Viewpoint Digital, and ultimately merged all operations together to become the Viewpoint Corporation. (The name Viewpoint derives from Viewpoint DataLabs International, Inc. which was a 1988 founded enterprise that specialized in the area of digitalisation and modelling for the movie industry like for Star Trek, and it got under the hood of Computer Associates in 1998.[ citation needed ]) The newly formed Viewpoint Corporation divested itself of all former MetaCreations graphics products to push MetaStream technology.
In 2000, Eliven bought all not-yet-possessed shares of Viewpoint Digital Inc. from Computer Associates International Inc. which held about 17.7% of the full daughter Metastream Corporation at that time. [3] In the process of this Viewpoint got declared the Consumer Products division of the Enliven Marketing Technologies Corporation. Further Viewpoint’s NASDAQ stock ticker symbol changed from VWPT to ENLV to reflect the Company’s name change in January 2008. [4] [5] Enliven was then acquired by DG FastChannel for $98 million, in a stock-for-stock transaction. [6]
Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo, is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation, the company is known for producing software titles such as CorelDRAW, and for acquiring AfterShot Pro, PaintShop Pro, Painter, Video Studio and WordPerfect.
Poser is a 3D computer graphics program distributed by Bondware. Poser is optimized for the 3D modeling of human figures. By enabling beginners to produce basic animations and digital images, along with the extensive availability of third-party digital 3D models, it has attained much popularity.
Konica Minolta, Inc. is a Japanese multinational technology company headquartered in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with offices in 49 countries worldwide. The company manufactures business and industrial imaging products, including copiers, laser printers, multi-functional peripherals (MFPs) and digital print systems for the production printing market. Konica Minolta's Managed Print Service (MPS) is called Optimised Print Services. The company also makes optical devices, including lenses and LCD film; medical and graphic imaging products, such as X-ray image processing systems, colour proofing systems, and X-ray film; photometers, 3-D digitizers, and other sensing products; and textile printers. It once had camera and photo operations inherited from Konica and Minolta but they were sold in 2006 to Sony, with Sony's Alpha series being the successor SLR division brand.
Corel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by professional digital artists as a functional creative tool.
Kai Krause is a German software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., for his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design.
Infini-D was a 3D computer graphics program developed by Specular International. It was continued by MetaCreations when Specular merged with them, developing up to version 4.5, then combined with Ray Dream Studio to create Carrara. Soon after, Metacreations divested itself of all products other than MetaStream, including Carrara, which was sold to Eovia, who then sold it to the current developer, DAZ, upon Eovia's breaking up.
Bryce, also often referred to colloquially as Bryce3D, is a 3D modeling, rendering and animation program specializing in fractal landscapes. The name is taken from Bryce Canyon—a rugged region with many of the same landscapes that were first simulated with the software.
A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a comparison of vector graphics editors based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
Creature House Expression was an award-winning vector graphics editor developed by Creature House in Hong Kong, founded by Alex S.C. Hsu and Irene H. H. Lee. It was initially marketed through a developer/publisher agreement with Ray Dream Inc. subsequently Fractal Design Corporation and later MetaCreations under the trade name Fractal Design Expression. The software was positioned as a companion to then-Fractal Design/MetaCreations Painter. Creature House regained full marketing rights from MetaCreations Corp. in late 2000 and published version 2 of the software under its own name as Creature House Expression. The latest version of Creature House Expression published by Creature House Ltd is version 3.3.
Graphic art software is a subclass of application software used for graphic design, multimedia development, stylized image development, technical illustration, general image editing, or simply to access graphic files. Art software uses either raster or vector graphic reading and editing methods to create, edit, and view art.
Ulead PhotoImpact is a raster and vector graphics editing program published by Ulead Systems.
The Eovia Corporation was founded in November 2000, with offices in both the US and France. The company's 3D computer graphics software products were aimed towards professional and amateur artists, with a focus on remaining accessible in price and usability.
Kai's Power Tools are a set of API plugins created by the German computer scientist Kai Krause in 1992 that were designed for use with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint. Kai's Power Tools were sold to Corel in 2000 when MetaCreations was closed.
Carrara is a full-featured 3D computer graphics application featuring figure posing and editing, as well as nature modeling, in addition to traditional modeling, animation, texturing and rendering. The software is also capable of dynamic hair and fur simulations, particle effects, soft body and rigid body dynamics. Carrara is now owned and developed by Daz 3D. Carrara is compatible with Poser and Daz Studio formats of 3D figures and props. It is further supported by a number of 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons.
Viewpoint Media Player (VMP) is a browser graphics rendering plug-in originally produced by Viewpoint Corporation, a subsidiary of the marketing company Digital Generation, Inc.. A predecessor of VMP is the browser plug-in MetaStream from the once acquired company MetaCreations.
Daz Productions, Inc. is a 3D-content and software company specializing in providing rigged 3D human models, associated accessory content, and software to the hobbyist as well as the prosumer market.
Unicast was the internet marketing and advertising technology group of Enliven Marketing Technologies Corporation. It provided services for agencies, advertisers and publishers to create, deploy and measure the performance of what they called "Premium Rich Media" (PRM) digital ad campaigns. Unicast was founded in 1999 and opened its first European office in the UK in September 2007. Enliven was later acquired by DG, who were in turn acquired in 2008 by Extreme Reach.
Ray Dream Studio was a low-end 3D modeling software application. Initially developed by Ray Dream, Inc. in 1989-1991 for the Macintosh, it was acquired and upgraded over the course of mergers with Fractal Design and MetaCreations. Ray Dream was less expensive than most other offerings, renowned for its ease of use, and boasted an impressive feature set including a sophisticated shader editor. Other software programs from the same developers, such as Fractal Design Painter 3D, were often introduced in basic form to the suite. A moderately limited version lacking animation capability was sold for $99 as Ray Dream Designer, and quickly became a mass-market favorite.
Dabbler is natural media drawing software for beginners. It was initially developed by Fractal Design Corporation. It is a simplified version of Fractal Design Painter, and included multimedia tutorials and a fullscreen interface. Dabbler was released as "Art Dabbler" after the MetaCreations merger, and rights were eventually transferred to Corel. Dabbler operating system is Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows.
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