MetaTools
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| Software Developer | |
| Founded | Fractal Design Corp (1991); Harvard Systems Corp (1987) |
| Headquarters | Carpinteria, CA |
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Footnotes / references Rebranded Viewpoint Corporation in 1999 |
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MetaCreations was a computer software company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and Kai's Power Tools.
MetaCreations was founded in 1997 by the mergers of MetaTools, Fractal Design Corporation, Ray Dream, Specular, and Real Time Geometry Lab (RTG).John Wilczak and Mark Zimmer led the initial operations. Wilczak left the company in 1998. The software and GUI designer, highly valued creative head for his contributions to the public brand appearance,Kai Krause (MetaTools, Goo-Series, KPT, ...) left shortly afterwards in 1999.
In 1999 MetaCreations invested itself heavily in the newly developed '3d on the Web' technology "MetaStream" and began restructuring from graphics applications to Internet technology. MetaCreations formed a subsidiary company called MetaStream, acquired Viewpoint Digital, and ultimately merged all operations together to become the Viewpoint Corporation. (The name Viewpoint derives from Viewpoint DataLabs International, Inc. which was a 1988 founded enterprise that specialized in the area of digitalisation and modelling for the movie industry like for Star Trek, and it got under the hood of Computer Associates in 1998.) The newly formed Viewpoint Corporation divested itself of all former MetaCreations graphics products to push MetaStream technology.
In 2000 Eliven bought all not-yet possessed shares of Viewpoint Digital Inc. from Computer Associates International Inc. which held about 17.7% of the full daughter Metastream Corporation at that time. In the process of this Viewpoint got declared the Consumer Products division of the Enliven Marketing Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ENLV). Further Viewpoint’s NASDAQ stock ticker symbol changed from VWPT to ENLV to reflect the Company’s name change in January 2008.
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