Year | Events |
|---|---|
2011 | iray® Integration Framework 3.2 released, additional details |
2011 | Release of RealityServer® 3.1.1 |
2011 | mental images fully integrates within NVIDIA to accelerate mutual development, additional details |
2010 | Dassault Systèmes includes Live Rendering in CATIA V6 - powered by iray® |
2010 | The first 3D Cloud services featuring NVIDIA GPUs and RealityServer announced by Peer 1 and Penguin Computing, featuring NVIDIA GPUs and RealityServer® |
2010 | Bunkspeed SHOT™ ships as the first end-user application to integrate iray® |
2009 | Release of RealityServer® 3.0 |
2009 | First release of iray®, the world’s first interactive photorealistic GPU renderer |
2008 | Autodesk releases Revit with mental ray integrated |
2007 | mental images becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of NVIDIA Corporation |
2006 | Autodesk ships AutoCAD with mental ray integrated |
2003 | mental images completed a US$6 million investment round led by ViewPoint Ventures and another large international private equity investor to expand its product offerings to include the server-based 3D collaboration platform RealityServer. |
2003 | Academy Award® presented to the “mathematicians, physicists and software engineers of mental images for their contributions to the mental ray rendering software for motion pictures”. In announcing the award, The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences commended mental ray as “a highly programmable computer-graphics renderer incorporating ray tracing and global illumination to realistically simulate the behavior of light in computer-generated imagery.” |
2002 | Completion and release of RealityServer 1.0 beta. |
2002 | mental images enters into a long-term licensing and custom support and development agreement with Industrial Light and Magic, one of the worlds leading visual effects companies. |
2002 | mental images and Alias Wavefront announce strategic alliance and the inclusion of mental ray as the fully-integrated rendering solution in Alias Wavefront’s Digital Content Creation software Maya®. |
2001 | Completion of mental ray 3.0 |
1999 | Integration of mental ray 2.1 into Softimage XSI and 3ds Max. |
1997 | Start of the mental ray 2.1 implementation. The primary new feature is global illumination and the corresponding extension of the shader API. |
1996 | Completion of mental ray 2.0 for integration into Softimage’s next generation 3D software package (then called Sumatra, now Softimage XSI). |
1995 | Start of the mental ray 2.0 project, a complete re-implemention of mental ray, now based on a distributed editable scene database resulting from the ESPRIT project prototype |
1993 | Integration of mental ray 1.9 into Softimage’s Softimage3D animation software package. First C language based shader interface implementation, development of contour rendering capabilities and first use of these in cartoon animation motion picture production. First use of 3D generated contour information to drive hand-drawn 2D characters. |
1990-1992 | Development of the first version of mental ray’s geometry module for inclusion in Wavefront Technologies’ Advanced Visualizer 3D animation software package and definition of the extended .obj format for Wavefront Technologies. The geometry module becomes part of mental ray 1.6. |
1989 | Launch of first commercial mental ray release. |
1986 | mental images is founded in April; start of the mental ray project. The first versions of the software were influenced, tested and used for production by mental images’ then operating large commercial computer animation division, led by three of today’s leading Visual Effects Supervisors: John Andrew Berton (1986-1989), 2000 Academy Award Winner John Nelson (1987-1989), and 1996 and 2000 Academy Award Nominee Stefen Fangmeier (1988-1990). |