Altamira (software)

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Altamira Software was founded by Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, Mr. Eric Lyons and Mr. Nicholas Clay in 1991. The company's primary product was Altamira Composer. This PC based software pioneered object-based drawing and image editing. The application was in many respects years ahead of anything developed for desktop use at the time. Composer was the first to bring important tools such as anti-aliased effects, and image sprites, more commonly known as alpha channels to the desktop. The company was acquired by Microsoft [1] in 1994. Other key staff included: Thea Grigsby of VP Marketing, David Shantz of WildOutWest, LLC [2] was responsible for branding, package design and the development of a series of image object libaries that were released along with the product.