Acuris, Inc. - 3D Models, 1990 - 95

Founder & President

Accomplishments:

Acuris is a word I made up. I wanted to convey Accuracy, Precision and Quality, yet I also wanted a name that was useful in several languages. I liked names such as Claris in that they had a Latin sound and were universal. Acuris was the result (it helped that I drove an Acura at the time...)

Acuris was founded in August of 1990. We started with a research contract with Digital Equipment that Dave Albert had secured. I was working for Jeff Lane and Chris Bremser of Digital, who also shared some of the original ideas of the need for good 3D models and wanted to bundle 3D models with their 3D workstations. Digital was not able to execute on these ideas when the Palo Alto group doing the 3D workstations was closed in 1991. I continued with the concepts and the company, focusing on broad based 3D Models.

Wendy Govier wrote the following in SGI's on-line magazine ION, Summer '95 issue:

"Today, artists from all medias are knocking on the Acuris' studio door. Acuris now offers extensive collections of ClipModels and AcuModels -- 3D models of everything from furniture and vehicles to trees and human forms. The company also offers custom modeling services and, among its latest ventures, Inventor (IV) Translators. IV is the first standard 3D model format that allows you to bring models from a variety of programs into Inventor and Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) formats."

I want to thank Mr. & Mrs. Pete Brusati and my father for the early crucial investment. I want to thank Mr. & Mrs. Pip Danby for their invaluable help and investment in the later stages. The company grew slowly in the first 3 years and then at a pace of over 100% in the last 2 years.

We sold the 3D Model Assets to David Bader who is now continuing with the Acuris side of the company. You can check out their page at www.acuris.com , to get more information on CD-1 and download demo 3D models !

What I show here is what I was directly responsible and was done up to the end of 1994 prior to the sale of the company. I want to thank Derek Evans, Eileen Crawford, William Gordon, and all the people who hung in there and made Acuris what it is.

I created and trademarked the name ClipModels, to convey that these were not ClipArt3D or ClipObjects, but instead models of the real world.

The concept from the beginning was to:

Acuris CD-1, the culmination of over 2 years of work. The first of the broad based 3D model products. Priced aggressively at $395 in 1994. It sold very well in SIGGRAPH and continued with strong sales all of 1995. It is still a strong seller at Acuris.
 

The interface of CD-1. 110 ClipModels in 6 file formats, for Windows and Mac. It follows a well understood metaphor of folders and pages within the folders. I developed the concept and William Gordon did a brilliant design of the interface. It was the first 3D Model CD to offer several file formats for each 3D ClipModel. The whole CD was done in 6 weeks, the models had been developed over a period of over 2 years.
 

The CD-1 also served as a catalog for AcuModels that the customer could order from Acuris. Here are some of the Anatomical Models digitized by Acuris. From a marketing point of view I wanted to have two classes of 3D models, ClipModels (sold in sets at a good value) and AcuModels (sold individually at a premium price).
 

Acuris also did custom 3D modeling. I specified and designed software that worked with the digitizers and AutoCAD. Eric Lundquist did an outstanding job of Programming the software so that we could use any of the 3 digitizers we had.
 

From the beginning I understood the importance of good geographic 3D models and worked on developing an expertise in creating them. Eric Lundquist, again, did an excellent job of creating a set of tools that allowed us to provide the Department of Water Resources a complete 3D model of California with Rivers, Lakes and all the major water projects.
 

Another key class of model were the human ones. So I developed software that allowed me to take Cyberware Laser Scans and create usable 3D models of people's faces. The method was also tried, unsuccessfully, for digitizing other types of objects. I scanned my children and myself in different facial expressions and created a set of models that have been used in national advertising campaigns by Zenith, Toshiba and many others.