Altamira Software was founded in

Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

by Dr.

Alvy Ray Smith Alvy Ray Smith III (born September 8, 1943) is an American computer scientist who co-founded Lucasfilm's Computer Division and Pixar, participating in the 1980s and 1990s expansion of computer animation into feature film. Education In 1965, A ...

, Eric Lyons and Nicholas Clay in 1991. The company's primary product was Altamira Composer. This PC based software pioneered object-based drawing and image editing. Composer was one of the first to bring important tools such as

anti-aliased Anti-aliasing may refer to any of a number of techniques to combat the problems of aliasing in a sampled signal such as a digital image or digital audio recording. Specific topics in anti-aliasing include: * Anti-aliasing filter, a filter used be ...

effects and image sprites to the desktop. The company was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

in 1994. Thea Grigsby was Vice President of Marketing. David Shantz of WildOutWest, LLC (www.wildoutwest.com) was responsible for branding, package design and the development of a series of image object libraries that were released along with the product. Seed capital came from Autodesk and second-round financing from a team of venture capitalists (TVI) and private individuals. Altamira's Windows product, Altamira Composer, one of the first image composition applications with image sprites (i.e., non-rectangular, floating images), entered the market in November 1993 ( CoSA After Effects 1.0 shipped in January of that same year).

References

{{Microsoft Defunct software companies of the United States Microsoft acquisitions Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Marin County, California Software companies established in 1991 Software companies disestablished in 1994 1991 establishments in California 1994 disestablishments in California 1994 mergers and acquisitions Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area