MetaCreations was a

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and

Kai's Power Tools {{unreferenced, date=May 2011 Kai's Power Tools are a set of API plugins created by Kai Krause in 1992 that were designed for use with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint. Kai's Power Tools were sold to Corel when MetaCreations was closed. Th ...

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 Kai Krause (born March 14, 1957) is a German software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design. B ...

(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 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 o ...

" 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 eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

, and it got under the hood of

Computer Associates CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product po ...

in 1998.) 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. 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.

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 l ...

and Specular Infini-D were succeeded by

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

, which was sold to Eovia and subsequently acquired by

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

. *MetaTools' Bryce was sold to

Corel Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo (pronounced like "all you do"), is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation ( ; from the abbreviation ...

and subsequently acquired by

. *Fractal Design's

Poser Poser or ''variant'', may refer to: *a hard problem, a poser *a hard question, a poser People *Poseur, a person who inauthentically adopts a certain subculture *a person playing a role, a role-play, a fake, an imposter * Bob Poser (1910–2002) ...

was sold to Curious Labs, which was itself acquired by e-Frontier and finally

Smith Micro Software Smith Micro Software, Inc., founded in 1982 by William W. Smith, Jr., is a developer and marketer of both enterprise and consumer-level software and services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Smith Micro maintains multiple domestic and ...

. *MetaCreations'

Canoma Canoma was a 3D-modelling application for Windows and Macintosh which is now no longer supported by its company. Released by MetaCreations Corp. in 1999, this application allowed users to create 3D models based on one or more photographs taken fr ...

was acquired by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

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

Painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

was acquired by

. *Fractal Design's Expression reverted to its original developer, Creature House, who later sold the product to

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 ...

. 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 fro ...

, 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, 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 autofocu ...

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 Software companies of the United States Apple Design Awards recipients