Kai Krause (born 14 March 1957) is a German software and

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., for his

Kai's Power Tools Kai's Power Tools (KPT) 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 wa ...

series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design.

Biography

Born in

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

, Germany, Krause moved to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States in 1976. He worked with early

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

s and

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

s, and contributed sound effects to almost thirty records and movies. During the 1990s he ran several software companies –HSC Software, MetaTools,

MetaCreations MetaCreations was a computer software company that was best known for its graphics editor, graphics applications, notably Carrara (software), Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Corel Painter, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce (software), Bryce, and Kai's Po ...

– to develop tools for graphic designers. In February 2005, the "DEMO" conference acknowledged him as one of the Top 15 Innovators of the last 15 years. Krause has a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from the Brooks Institute in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

(1996), and an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

from the

University of Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...

, Germany (1999). Today Krause lives and works in the 1000-year-old near

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

in Germany.

History

The company which he co-founded, MetaCreations Corp., began as HSC Software, which released the first version of Kai's Power Tools in 1992. HSC released a second version, and the first version of Bryce, and several other titles before changing their name to MetaTools in 1995. This name remained until 1997, when a rapid series of mergers with Fractal Design, RayDream, Specular, and RTG (Real-Time Geometry) necessitated a new identity for the growing organization: MetaCreations. The interfaces of Krause's products used soft shadows, rounded corners, and translucency prior to their wider adoption. For the rest of the 1990s, MetaCreations continued to develop a variety of successful graphical software titles. Application and interfaces for which Krause was most directly responsible include Kai's Power Tools, Live Picture, Bryce, Kai's Power Show, Kai's Power Goo, Convolver, Kai's Photo Soap and

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 ...

Software

is now published by

Corel Corporation 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 ...

, as "The Corel KPT Collection". * KPT Bryce is now published by

Daz 3D Daz Productions, Inc. (commonly known as Daz 3D, stylized Daz3D or DAZ 3D in certain logos) is a 3D-content and software company, specializing in providing rigged 3D human models, associated accessory content, and software. History Original ...

, as simply "Bryce". * Kai's Power Show, Kai's Photo Soap and Kai's Power Goo are now property of

Nuance Communications Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software. Nuance merged with its comp ...

. They have been discontinued. * Frax, a

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

explorer for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

References

External links

*
Edge: Kai Krause
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krause, Kai 1957 births Living people German computer scientists Interface designers People from Dortmund Scientists from North Rhine-Westphalia