[Openexr-announce] SplutterFish Supports Industrial Light & Magic OpenEXR Image Format Standard

[Richard Annema]

Media Contact
Vicky Gray-Clark/Ambient Public Relations
408-629-8842, address@hidden

SplutterFish Supports Industrial Light & Magic OpenEXR Image Format Standard

VENICE, CA (June 4, 2003) - SplutterFish LLC, a high-end 3D rendering software solutions provider, today announced its has developed a Bitmap I/O plug-in for use in Discreet's 3ds max and Autodesk Viz, in support of OpenEXR, a new open-source, High-Dynamic-Range image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).

OpenEXR, a previously proprietary file format developed and used by ILM, defines a flexible, efficient, and extensible image file format which includes a new, high-precision, 16-bit half-float image description that offers a greater dynamic range than existing 8- and 10-bit file formats. ILM released the format code in January to the open source community to serve as an industry standard for computer imaging applications. It is rapidly gaining support from professional computer graphics hardware and software vendors as well as practitioners in the digital content community. OpenEXR has been in use in film production on high profile projects such as "The Hulk," "Gangs of New York," "Men in Black II," "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and "Signs."

"SplutterFish have long been advocates of providing free tools to the 3ds max community, with the founders having a long history of releasing popular plug-ins and utilities free for all to use. We are happy to be able to continue this tradition with the release of the OpenEXR plug-in, which will provide 3ds max users with a flexible format for working with full dynamic range imagery," said Steve Blackmon, CTO of SplutterFish. "We would like to thank ILM for their generosity in making the EXR code available to the open source community. It's great to see an industry leader working to establish usable and production proven standards like this that will raise the bar for creative professionals working in the CG community."

Availability

The OpenEXR plug-in for 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ is currently available from SplutterFish and can be downloaded, free-of-charge, from the company's website, www.splutterfish.com/download .

About SplutterFish

SplutterFish LLC, established in 2001, is a Venice, California-based software provider of high-end, affordable and efficient 3D rendering tools. The company develops solutions focused towards the needs of production professionals working in the film, broadcast, architectural and product visualization, design engineering, 3D cartoon-style animation, and CG research industries. SplutterFish software products are currently available from the company and its international reseller representatives.

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Brazil Rendering System is a trademark of Splutterfish, LLC. Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. 3ds max is a trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Industrial Light & Magic is a Lucasfilm Ltd. company. OpenEXR, ILM and Industrial Light & Magic are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. protected by the law of the USA and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Additional information on SplutterFish is available on the Internet at www.splutterfish.com .

Additional technical information on OpenEXR is available on the Internet at http://www.openexr.org .