mental images Names Paul Ryan VP of Product Engineering

Seasoned Software Development Manager to Lead Core Product Engineering Division

BERLIN, Germany, July 25, 2006 - mental images^®, a global leader in the fast-growing market for high-end 3D visualization software, today announced the appointment of Paul Ryan as Vice President of Product Engineering.

In his new capacity, Mr. Ryan will oversee mental images's core software product engineering division in charge of the development of the company's current main component technology product, mental ray^®, and of its new platform technology product, RealityServer^®. RealityServer is mental images's revolutionary software platform to enable 3D Web Services and applications that permit very large numbers of users to simultaneously access and remotely interact with original 3D content regardless of its complexity from any network enabled device.

Ryan joins mental images in Berlin with 20+ years of experience in software development, ranging from Kodak where he was involved in the innovative Academy Award^® winning "Cineon" project in the development of the digital composing workstation to leading positions in the visual effects industry such as CTO of Dfilm in Australia and ESC Entertainment in the U.S., where he managed all software development and IT operations for the production of ground-breaking visual effects for the "Matrix" movie trilogy. Most recently, Mr. Ryan served as CTO of Berliner Film Company, where, among other things, he designed and deployed the most powerful 3D rendering facility in Europe to enable the production and successful completion of the forthcoming animated feature "Happily N'Ever After".

"We are excited that Paul has decided to join us," said Rolf Herken, the CEO and CTO of mental images. "His vast and profound experience in building and managing large software engineering and development teams for image processing, visualization, and entertainment content production combined with a keen customer perspective, will help us to scale up our software engineering operation to support our unique RealityServer platform and the recent dramatic growth of the installed base of our component technology products such as mental ray."

"Joining mental images was a natural step for me," said Paul Ryan. "Having worked closely with mental images as a partner for a number of years and knowing the commitment to innovation of the development team made it an easy choice. I look forward to contributing to the ongoing development of mental ray and to the successful development and deployment of RealityServer, the most exciting new product I have seen in years."

Mr. Ryan is a recipient of the prestigious Visual Effects Society Award. He is an Australian citizen and holds a Master of Engineering Science and Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering degrees from the University of Melbourne.

About RealityServer

RealityServer is mental images's new product that enables interactive manipulation and visualization of existing and newly created 3D content. RealityServer based applications permit thousands of users to simultaneously and optionally collaboratively access and interact with original 3D data. Since the original content remains on the server, access to data and user policies are easily secured and managed centrally. This benefit is especially important for industries that will increasingly rely on interactive collaboration but have a strong interest in maintaining control over their core data. Industries that stand to benefit from RealityServer include: remote maintenance and repair; online training and product support; collaborative product design and content creation; medical imaging; simulation and geophysical data analysis; defense and intelligence applications; interactive online gaming/entertainment; and e-Commerce.

About mental images

mental images®, founded in 1986, is the recognized international leader in providing rendering software to the entertainment, computer-aided design, scientific visualization, architecture, and other industries that require sophisticated images. The company’s main product is the Academy Award® winning photorealistic rendering software mental ray® which runs on a wide variety of platforms ranging from networks of workstations to parallel supercomputers, producing images of unsurpassed realism. mental ray was initially released in 1989 and has been used in the production of several hundred major motion pictures. Leading visual effects companies and studios, such as Buf Compagnie, DreamWorks, Lucasfilm Animation, Industrial Light and Magic, The Mill, and The Moving Picture Company are among mental images's largest customers. Additionally, in the CAD field mental ray is used by the world's leading automobile and aircraft manufactures to accelerate the design of new products.

mental images GmbH is a privately held company based in Berlin, Germany, with a wholly owned subsidiary mental images, Inc. in San Francisco, California and an office in Stockholm, Sweden. For more information, visit www.mentalimages.com.