NVidia Acquires Mental Images

"Mental Images, founded in 1986, is the recognized leader and de facto industry standard for visualization software for the entertainment, computer-aided design, scientific visualization, architecture, and other industries that require sophisticated images. The company's core 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 is the integrated rendering technology within such leading Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Digital Content Creation (DCC) software products as Autodesk's AutoCAD, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Dassault Systems CATIA and Solidworks, and AVID Softimage|XSI.

In addition, leading visual effects (VFX) companies and studios, such as Buf Compagnie, Digital Domain, DreamWorks Animation, Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rainmaker, The Mill, The Moving Picture Company and The Orphanage are among Mental Images's largest customers. In the automotive, aerospace, advertising and other industries, Mental Ray is used extensively for product simulation and visualization.

Mental Images, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NVidia and operates under its brand and leadership team, including founder Rolf Herken as the CEO/CTO, from its headquarters in Berlin, Germany as well as its other worldwide locations in Europe, North America, and Australia.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary, mental images has autonomy in running its day-to-day business and continues to serve its customers in the dedicated manner it is known for. Mental Images develops and serves new business opportunities with its software and solutions business, including Mental Ray, Mental Mill and RealityServer, the platform product for the deployment of 3D web applications and application services.

The combination of mental images and NVidia united some of the greatest talents in the visual computing industry. This strategic combination enables the development of tools and technologies to advance the state of visualization. These solutions are optimized for next generation computing architectures and create new product categories for both hardware and software solutions."

Source: NVidia