The History of Rhinoceros
October 10th, 2008
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- May 92 – First meeting with AG. Applied Geometry (AG) came to us for assistance in integrating their AGLib, NURBS geometry library, in AutoCAD. AG customers included Alias Research, Spatial, Honda, and Tecnomatix
- Jul 92 – First prototype in AutoCAD after about 3 days of work.
- Nov 92 – McNeel/AG agreement to develop AccuModel, NURBS modeling for AutoCAD. McNeel would do the marketing and AG would do all the development. McNeel would provide AutoCAD development support as needed.
- Nov 92 – Michael Gibson hired as an intern. He brought Sculptura, a mesh modeler that he had done as a class project.
- Mar 93 – Sculptura released.
- Mar 93 – McNeel takes over as the lead on the AccuModel development.
- Jul 93 – First prototype of Sculptura 2 ready for NURBS.
- Nov 93 – Sculptura 2 nicknamed Rhinoceros.
- Jan 94 – New McNeel/AG agreement where McNeel was licensing AGLib from AG and AG would provide the needed AGLib enhancements and maintenace.
- Apr 94 – Rhino beta released on the Graphic Alternative BBS. This was our first version of a public beta program.
- May 94 – Dr Dale Lear hired from AG. We had found that we needed geometry expertise in house in order to develop the functionality and usability needed by our clients.
- May 94 – Alias Research agrees to purchase AG. Alias was AGs largest customer and they felt that one of their advantages was the geometry technology.
- May 94 – First commercial products completed using AccuModel. Ed Monk & Son Navel Architect released an 82 foot sports fishing boat.
- Jul 94 – Geometry development begins in earnest. Alias didnt seem to be interested in the geometry library business.
- Aug 94 – Sculptura renamed Rhinoceros after it was determined that we would not be able to reslove the trademark problems with AccuModel.
- Aug 94 – Private showing of Rhino at SIGGRAPH.
- Nov 94 – Sale of AG to Alias final.
- Mar 95 – McNeel provides Alias with first installment of geometry technology.
- Jun 95 – Alias purchased by Silicon Graphics.
- Jun 95 – McNeel receives the last update of AGLib.
- May 97 – Last build of AccuModel for AutoCAD. As the Rhino product progressed we decided that it would be better to focus on the Windows version.
- Sep 97 – 50,000 beta sites and growing fast without any promotional effort on our part.
- Jul 98 – 100,000 beta sites.
- Jul 98 – Announced Oct release at SIGGRAPH.
- Oct 98 – Release Rhino version 1.0.
- Dec 98 – First 5,000 shipped.
- Jan 99 – Japanese version released.
- Jan 99 – First public beta of 1.1 released.
- Jan 99 – First European reseller meeting in Barcelona.
- Mar 99 – First third party book on Rhino published.
- May 99 – Korean version ships.
- Aug 00 – First public beta of 2.0 and Flamingo released.
- Sep 01 Shipping Rhino 2.0.
- Nov 01 Shipping Flamingo.
- Nov 01 Inside Rhinoceros published