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Bitplane is a provider of software for 3D and 4D image analysis for the life sciences. Founded in December 1992, Bitplane operates out of three offices in Belfast, United Kingdom, Zürich, Switzerland and South Windsor, Connecticut, USA. == Company history == As confocal microscopes were first becoming commercially available, the founders of Bitplane, Marius Messerli, Karl-Hermann Fuchs, and Jürgen Holm, realised that there was no suitable way to visualize and analyze the improved images provided by this more modern equipment. While pursuing their research at the Institute for cell Biology at the ETH in Zurich the first productive version of Bitplane's core product, Imaris, was developed. A small community of users developed among the scientific collaborators of the founders and the company Bitplane was created. The name Imaris has been derived from three words: "image" analysis, the primary function of the software, "Marius" the name of the innovator and Bitplane co-founder, and finally, the "Personal Iris", the name of the hardware that initially enabled interactive 3D imaging. When Imaris was initially introduced to the market in 1993, only the most advanced hardware platform was able to accomplish the operations at a speed worthy of being deemed "interactive". From 1993 through 2000, the software ran exclusively on Silicon Graphics (SGI) workstations. In 2000, the company decided to replace the existing computer code with a completely new design based on C++, OpenGL and OpenInventor, in order to focus on the Windows operating system and gradually phase out the SGI hardware platform. The software now supports 64-bit hardware and the Macintosh operating system. Currently, Imaris performs optimally on graphics cards from NVIDIA and ATI, which provide the speed and ability to handle large amounts of data needed for modern 3D visualization. By the end of 1994, the software had sold in 30 labs in central Europe. In 1998, the product was introduced to the US market. From 1994 to 1997, in co-operation with the Maurice E. Muller foundation in Bern, Switzerland, Bitplane launched a second line of software products for the documentation and management of medical information for orthopedic surgeons. In 1997, this part of Bitplane's activity was made independent. Headed by Dr. Holm, this software line operates under the name of Qualidoc AG, Switzerland, and is a vendor of hospital information management systems.〔http://wl14www795.webland.ch/〕 Bitplane was acquired by Andor Technology in December 2009.〔(Andor Technology - Latest News, Press Releases and Announcements )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bitplane」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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