Mental Ray被NVIDIA收购

近日有网友在NVIDIA官方网站上发现，世界知名的视觉效果渲染引擎Mental Images公司已经被NVIDIA收购。Mental Images是在专业领域大名鼎鼎的渲染引擎Mental Ray的开发厂商，这次收购在专业图形渲染领域必将影响深远。Mental Images创建于1986年，总部位于德国柏林。Mental Ray引擎在数码内容创作和CAD/CAM领域应用广泛，AutoCAD、3DS MAX、Maya、CATIA、Solidworks、XSI等行业领先软件都使用了Mental Ray的技术，《蜘蛛侠3》等影片、《神秘岛》等游戏大作也都使用Mental Ray引擎进行渲染。NVIDIA收购该公司后，Mental Ray引擎和NVIDIA Quadro专业产品的配合将更加无间，必将显著加强NVIDIA在显卡硬件加速渲染领域的实力。

NVIDIA对此次收购显得非常低调，两家公司的网站都没有放出官方新闻稿，仅仅是在Quadro产品页面中介绍Mental Ray引擎时出现了这样的语句：“Mental Images是NVIDIA的全资子公司，独立运营。”

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_professional_software.html

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.