Lightwork Design Ltd. is a computer software company specialising in

3D Rendering 3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of converting 3D modeling, 3D models into 2D computer graphics, 2D images on a computer. 3D renders may include photorealistic rendering, photorealistic effects or non-photorealistic rendering, no ...

software. Its headquarters are in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, United Kingdom.

Early history

Lightworks was founded in Sheffield in 1989, with the goal to create a software toolkit for producing photorealistic renders from 3D geometry. While originally based in the Sheffield Science Park, Lightworks is now based in Rutledge House, a building situated next to the

Sheffield Botanical Gardens The Sheffield Botanical Gardens are botanical gardens situated off Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, England, with 5,000 species of plants in 19 acres (77,000 m2) of land. The gardens were designed by Robert Marnock and first opened in 1836. ...

and originally built in the 1850s as the Victoria Park Hotel. The first Lightworks product was demonstrated at the 1990 Autofact exhibition in Detroit, USA. Sales of the initial Lightworks product commenced in early 1991, and the company signed their first major CAD developer,

Unigraphics NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/ CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both softwa ...

(now Siemens) in 1993. The company signed their first international customer,

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, in 1994. In 1995 Lightworks began to develop the MachineWorks toolkit. This led to the foundation of MachineWorks, which is now a separate company. In 1997, Lightworks launched a large model navigation system called Navisworks, which was sold in 2007 to Autodesk for $26 million. In 1999, Lightworks and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

formed a partnership, and the company started to develop their products for the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

platform.

Recent developments

Partnership with NVIDIA

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...

2013, Lightworks announced a new partnership with

NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

to develop an SDK to provide access to NVIDIA's Iray technology. This SDK, called Iray+, is intended to provide physically accurate ray-tracing to clients who need to present their products to customers, and will have the ability to use cloud- and network-based rendering.

Products

Lightworks' current products are Lightworks Author and Iray+.

Lightworks Author

Lightworks Author was the first product launched by Lightwork Design. The main use of the product is in architectural design, interior design, engineering, and automotive design. The software works across Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, in 32- and 64-bit binaries.

Lightworks Iray+

Lightworks Iray+ was introduced at SIGGRAPH 2013. It uses the GPU-accelerated ray tracing engine developed by the NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center to provide interactive product visualisations. Lightworks are also developing an Iray plugin for

3DS Max Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabil ...

Previous Products

Artisan

In its 20th year, Lightworks announced a new product called Lightworks Artisan at SIGGRAPH 2009. Also known as Renditioner for Trimble's

SketchUp SketchUp is a suite of subscription products that include SketchUp Pro Desktop, a 3D modeling Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program for a broad range of drawing and design applications — including architectural, interior design, industrial an ...

, this is a ready-to-deliver rendering product that is used alongside

CAD/CAM CAD/CAM refers to the integration of Computer-aided design (CAD) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). Both of these require powerful computers. ''CAD'' software helps designers and draftsmen; ''CAM'' "reduces manpower costs" in the manufactur ...

programmes such a
GstarCAD
ZWCAD, BricsCAD, Kubotek's KeyCreator, and several others. In 2010, Artisan was integrated with Ascon's Kompas 3D and BeLight Software. The product introduced a number of new technologies including SnapShot capabilities and pre-loaded content libraries. It is aimed towards 3D designers who want to create realistic images using a

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

programme. "SnapShot technology" refers to the ability to record the state of storage at any given moment. In Artisan, this allows users to save their renders at different stages, so that they may return to those stages and alter selected elements, such as textures, colour, or background images. Since 2014, Artisan has been marketed and sold by Pictorex Ltd.

Customers and Partners

Partners include Siemens, NVIDIA, and Spatial, while customers include PTC, Graphisoft, ACA, and Ascon.

Other information

Every year, Lightworks selects a local charity to support through fundraising events. In 2013, Lightworks raised money for

Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice is a children's hospice run as registered charity offering palliative care and support to families who have a child or young person with a shortened life expectancy and complex medical needs. Bluebell Wood provid ...

, while in 2014 the company is sponsoring a week of breakfasts at the Cathedral Archer project, a homelessness charity. A team from Lightworks is undertaking the "Ben Nevis Challenge" in June 2014, while the Lightworks running team, "Runworks", competes in the yearly

Sheffield Half Marathon The Sheffield Half Marathon is an annual half marathon held in Sheffield, England. It was started as a marathon in 1929 for two years, with a half marathon run at the same time. It restarted again 1946 after the Second World War. In 2003 it was red ...

corporate charity running challenge, most recently running the "cancelled" 2014 race.
Sheffield Half Marathon 2014 News
'. Retrieved 3 April 2014

References

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External links

Lightworks Iray+ demonstration using NVIDIA's NitroLightworks WebsiteBest CAD alternative GstarCAD
1989 establishments in England Companies based in Sheffield Software companies of the United Kingdom