Mental Images

Mental Images GmbH
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	CGI, Computer software
Founded	April 1986; 38 years ago in Berlin
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Key people	Rolf Herken (president, CEO, CTO)
Products	Mental Ray, RealityServer, mental mill, MetaSL, mental mesh, iray, DiCE
Number of employees	80
Parent	Nvidia
Website	mentalimages.com

Mental Images GmbH (stylized as mental images) was a German computer generated imagery (CGI) software firm based in Berlin, Germany, and was acquired by Nvidia in 2007, then rebranded as Nvidia Advanced Rendering Center (ARC), and is still providing similar products and technology. The company provides rendering and 3D modeling technology for entertainment, computer-aided design, scientific visualization and architecture.

The company was founded by the physicists and computer scientists Rolf Herken, Hans-Christian Hege, Robert Hödicke and Wolfgang Krüger and the economists Günter Ansorge, Frank Schnöckel and Hans Peter Plettner as a company with limited liability & private limited partnership (GmbH & Co. KG) in April 1986 in Berlin, Germany. The Mental Ray software project started in 1986. The first versions of the rendering software were influenced, tested and used for production by Mental Images' then operating large commercial computer animation division, led by the 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).

In 2003, Mental Images completed an investment round led by ViewPoint Ventures and another large international private equity investor.^[1] Since December 2007, Mental Images GmbH is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nvidia corporation^[2] with headquarters in Berlin, subsidiaries in San Francisco (Mental Images Inc.) and Melbourne (Mental Images Pty. Ltd.) as well as an office in Stockholm. After acquisition by Nvidia the company has been renamed Nvidia Advanced Rendering Center (Nvidia ARC GmbH).

Products

Mental Images was the developer of the rendering software Mental Ray, iray,^[3] mental mill, RealityServer, and DiCE.

Filmography

Mental Images (1987) (a short film of the same name)
Asterix in America (1994) (3D computer animation "Storm Sequence" and digital effects, software development)
Heaven (2002) (images computed with Mental Ray)

References

^ "Mental Images conjures up funding". CNET. Retrieved 2024-05-01.
^ "mental images".
^ Keller, Alexander; Wächter, Carsten; Raab, Matthias; Seibert, Daniel; van Antwerpen, Dietger; Korndörfer, Johann; Kettner, Lutz (2017). "The Iray Light Transport Simulation and Rendering System". arXiv:1705.01263 [cs.GR].

External links

Official website
Technical Oscars: The 75th Scientific & Technical Awards 2002 / 2003
Prix Ars Electronica, 1987, archived from the original on 2011-08-07
mental images office at the Kant Dreieck tower
Los Angeles mental ray User Group, archived from the original on 2002-11-22

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[1] "Mental Images conjures up funding". CNET. Retrieved 2024-05-01.

[nvidia_mental_images-2] "mental images".

[3] Keller, Alexander; Wächter, Carsten; Raab, Matthias; Seibert, Daniel; van Antwerpen, Dietger; Korndörfer, Johann; Kettner, Lutz (2017). "The Iray Light Transport Simulation and Rendering System". arXiv:1705.01263 [cs.GR].

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