mental ray Software from mental images selected by Sony Pictures Imageworks

LOS ANGELES and BERLIN; June 5, 2007: mental images®, a global leader in rendering software for filmmakers and computer entertainment, announced a multi-year software license and custom support agreement that will provide Sony Pictures Imageworks with mental images' Academy Award® winning mental ray® rendering software for use in visual effects and character animation for upcoming visual effects and computer-generated movie projects.

Rendering software is used to generate realistic images from 3D scene data. mental ray, in particular, can closely simulate reality, allowing studios to reach remarkable levels of visual richness in their computer-generated imagery, blurring the line between what is real and what is computer-generated. Imageworks continues to use mental ray in its rendering pipeline and is now one of the largest mental ray installations worldwide.

mental images will provide custom support to Imageworks including custom software development, 24-hour turnaround and on-site support. Imageworks will have access to the developer versions of the mental ray rendering and mental matter® modeling libraries as well as mental images' new rendering target platform independent shader creation tool mental mill™.

"We use mental ray for its technical sophistication and ray tracing accuracy, giving our artists the ability to produce realistic lighting effects for our films. A key factor in our decision was the unique custom support package provided by mental images," said Bill Villarreal, Vice President of Technology at Imageworks.

Digital production studios increasingly demand the level of photorealism and artistic visual richness that can be achieved with mental ray software. mental images' technology helps blur the line between virtual and real, allowing for experimentation with innovative effects that are revolutionizing the motion picture industry.

"We are excited and honored to be working with Sony Pictures Imageworks," said Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. "The combination of their exceptional artistic resources, creativity, technical sophistication and vision with mental images's world class software will lead to spectacular visual results."

About Sony Pictures Imageworks

Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is an Academy Award® winning, state-of-the-art digital production studio dedicated to the art of visual effects production and character animation. The Imageworks production environment facilitates four diverse pipelines including live-action visual effects and character work, ImagemotionTM performance capture, all CG animation and Imageworks 3D stereoscopic.

The company's achievements have been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars® for its work on SPIDER-MAN® 2 and the CG animated short film THE CHUBBCHUBBS!. In addition, Imageworks' two most recent projects, the all CG animated feature, MONSTER HOUSE, made at Imageworks, and SUPERMAN RETURNS were nominated for Academy Awards in the Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects, respectively. Other Oscar nominated projects include THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, SPIDER-MAN®, HOLLOW MAN, STUART LITTLE and STARSHIP TROOPERS, for a total of 9 nominations.

The 2007 dual nominations in the Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects categories is the first time one studio is recognized in these distinct areas and is indicative of the diversity and quality of the company's capabilities.

For more information, visit www.imageworks.com.

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, Digital Domain, DreamWorks Animation, Lucasfilm Animation, Industrial Light and Magic, The Mill, The Moving Picture Company, The Orphanage, ReelFX, and Sony Pictures Imageworks 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's new product RealityServer® enables interactive manipulation and visualization of existing and newly created 3D content. Applications based on it 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.

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.