Kai Krause: About...

Kai Krause is a German software designer who started with Tools for Adobe Photoshop. He went to Florida and founded his own software company "HSC", later called "MetaTools".

Some MetaTools products: Kai's Power Tools (a collection of Photoshop plug-ins), Bryce (a synthetical landscape designer), Convolver (a Photoshop plug-in that creates variations of effects without numbers), and the "fun programs" GOO (distorting and morphing images), and Soap (easy image processing).

In 1997 MetaTools acquired Fractal Design to form a new company called "MetaCreations".

Fractal Design is famous for developing the artist program "Painter", its "small" version "Dabbler", and "Poser", a program for constructing "synthetic" persons that can even be animated.

In the meantime, Kai Krause left MetaTools, which is nearly out of business – at least it sold out all its graphic tools (some of them to Corel). Kai Krause bought a fortress in the Rheinland (Byteburg) to create a design school/center.

Links

• Byteburg: www.byteburg.de/
• Artist at Play (interview, 1997): www.theatlantic.com/unbound/digicult/dc9704/krause.htm
• Bio (Edge): http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/krause.html