MetaCreations was a

computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and Kai's Power Tools.

History

MetaCreations was founded in 1997 by the mergers of MetaTools, Fractal Design Corporation, Ray Dream, Specular, and Real Time Geometry Lab (RTG). 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, 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 ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

, and it got under the hood of

Computer Associates CA Technologies, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc., and CA, Inc., was an American multinational enterprise software developer and publisher that existed from 1976 to 2018. CA grew to rank as one of the largest independent ...

in 1998.) The newly formed Viewpoint Corporation divested itself of all former MetaCreations graphics products to push MetaStream technology. In 2000, Enliven 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. 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. Enliven was then acquired by DG FastChannel for $98 million, in a stock-for-stock transaction.

Products

Ray Dream Studio 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 ...

and Specular

Infini-D Infini-D is a discontinued 3D computer graphics program developed by Specular International. It was continued up to version 4.5 by MetaCreations when Specular merged with it. It combined with Ray Dream Studio to create Carrara Carrara ( ; ; , ...

were succeeded by

Carrara Carrara ( ; ; , ) is a town and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey Carrara marble, marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, ...

, which was sold to

Eovia 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 ...

and subsequently acquired by Daz 3D. *MetaTools' Bryce was sold to

Corel 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 ( ; from the abbreviation "Cowpland Research Laborat ...

and subsequently acquired by Daz 3D. *Fractal Design's

Poser Poser or Posers may refer to: People *Poseur, a person who inauthentically adopts a certain subculture *Bob Poser (1910–2002), U.S. baseball player *Charles Poser (1923–2010), Belgian-American neurologist *Christian Poser (born 1986), German ...

was sold to Curious Labs, which was itself acquired by e-Frontier and finally Smith Micro Software. *MetaCreations' Canoma was acquired by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

. It was discontinued and its technology folded into other products. *Fractal Design's

Painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

was acquired by

. *Fractal Design's Expression reverted to its original developer,

Creature House 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. s ...

, who later sold the product to

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. It is now sold as

Microsoft Expression Design Microsoft Expression Design was Microsoft's commercial professional illustration vector and raster graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2003. It is available free of charge fr ...

, part of the

Microsoft Expression Studio Microsoft Expression Studio is a discontinued suite of tools for designing and building Web and Windows client applications and rich digital media content. Overview Microsoft introduced Microsoft Expression on September 16, 2005, at Microsoft's ...

suite. *Kai's Photo Soap, Kai's Power Goo (later SuperGoo), and Kai's Power Show were acquired by ScanSoft, Inc.. They have been discontinued. *In 1999

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, lenses, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated ...

marketed the Minolta Dimâge 3D 1500, a modular digital camera based on the Minolta Dimâge EX 1500 incorporating MetaCreations' MetaFlash technology to achieve 3D image-capturing capabilities.

References

External links

The Interface of Kai Krause's Software @mprove
mprove: The Interface of Kai Krause’s Software {{Authority control Software companies based in California Defunct software companies of the United States Apple Design Awards recipients