October 8, 2008

Softimage Enters Development Relationship with Exocortex Technologies

Montreal, Québec - Softimage Co., a part of Avid Technology Inc., has entered into a strategic development relationship with Exocortex Technologies, a privately held software company that develops graphics, information visualization, and simulation software and services for government and private industry.

Ben Houston, chief technology officer and founder of Exocortex, has numerous patents in the physical simulation field, and will focus his development on next-generation interactive fluid simulation solutions that use the Softimage ICE platform—a visual, multi-threaded, node-based programming model, designed for high-performance 3D effects and deformations. Ben and his team will develop and introduce new techniques for solving interaction between fluids and objects in a 3D environment built on the Softimage ICE platform.

Simulation of liquids and gases is reportedly one of the most compute-intensive processes in 3D production today, and requires massive computation resources to achieve high-quality results in a reasonable amount of time. Softimage is engaging Exocortex to develop next-generation interactive fluid technologies using the new, multi-threaded ICE platform, introduced in Softimage|XSI 7, the company’s professional 3D modeling, animation, character creation, and rendering software package.