Artifice, Inc.

We founded Artifice, Inc. in 1992 to develop and publish the next generation of creative 3D modeling software for the building design professions. Artifice continues in that pioneering spirit today, developing and publishing new tools and media for spatial design and communication, from 3D home design to professional architecture.

Today we are a leading publisher of digital media for designers and design aficianados, and an international provider of creative design tools. Since the beginning, our mission has been to creatively apply timeless principles of good tools and design, in the fast-paced modern world of digital media.

Our awarding-winning family of 3D design tools, with its patented user interface and hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, is the design-oriented 3D CAD DesignWorkshop®, including DesignWorkshop Lite, Classic, and Professional. Our family of related websites attract literally millions of visitors, led by GreatBuildings.com, the leading general architecture site on the Web. Our lead ASP web site is RenderCity!, providing both free and subscription-based daylight rendering over the web, using the Radiance lighting simulation software engine.

We also publish ArchitectureWeek, the newest major magazine on design and building, and now the world's leading architecture magazine online. With monthly design and building-related readership greater than the leading hardcopy architecture monthly, ArchitectureWeek is created 48 times each year by an expert team of internationally renowned architectural writers and photographers, supported up by reader contributions and premiere sponsors, using a dynamic Internet-based publishing model.

The Great Buildings Collection on CD-ROM, a multimedia encyclopedia of architecture published by Artifice, has been the best selling architecture CD-ROM at Amazon.com for some 24 consecutive months. Our Artifice Images division provides quality architectural stock photography to leading publishers, authors, periodicals, and creative agencies worldwide, from our collection of ten of thousands of photos by represented photographers.

At Artifice we believe that good tools are clear, simple, and powerful. We create software with more functionality, not just with more features. The power of this approach becomes obvious from using our software and media, which let you focus on your creation, instead of on your computer.

Definitions: Artifice. 1534. [a. F., ad. L. artificium]  1. The action of an artificer, construction, workmanship.  2. The product of art.  3. Mode or style of workmanship.  4. Constructive skill.  5. Human skill.  6. Skill in expedients.  7. An ingenious expedient. Artificer. ME. [app. an AF. or ME. formation on ARTIFICE]  1. One who makes by art or skill.  5. One who practises any art; a savant. — The Oxford Universal Dictionary, Third Edition

Much as a timeless quality is found in the great works of architecture, there is a timeless quality found in great tools. Our hope is to serve you with this quality -- to transcend mere technology -- to help you unlock the power of your imagination.

We also believe that good tools deserve to be backed up by great support, so Artifice provides unlimited free technical support to all our registered users, and our technical support staff is friendly, patient, and experienced.

We also work to assemble appropriate software accessories to complete a wide variety of task-oriented solutions enabled by DesignWorkshop technology. For instance, we include useful third-party software like slide show and image conversion programs, and even our basic software packages come complete and ready-to-go with CAD translators, 3D libraries, scaled material textures, online documentation and tutorials, and examples of both general and specialized applications. Additional accessories for DesignWorkshop are provided by third party developers like ByteSyze Studio and 3D Innovations.

We believe anyone can afford to use the right level of DesignWorkshop, from grade school students using the freeware DesignWorkshop Lite, to international architects and production designers using DesignWorkshop Professional, and we have established price structures accordingly. We provide maintenance upgrades free of charge, our major upgrade prices are always reasonable, and academic discounts, multi-pack prices, and corporate site licenses are also available.

Artifice products are distributed in the U.S. without hardware copy-protection devices, and with concurrent-use licensing, so they are easy to install and easy to maintain. We believe in a relationship of trust with our customers. Artifice has been a corporate member of the Software Publishers Association and the Open DWG Alliance. Most of our products are available in dual platform formats supporting both Windows and Macintosh.

As new-economy multimedia publishers, we seek provide information resources for designers and students at every level, that are both clear, and deep, that are as accessible as they are extensive. In select and approriate areas, we are pioneering new business models that create a closer partnership between publisher and contributors.

In a different realm of public service, Artifice also maintains PetitionOnline.com, the original and leading online petition hosting Web site. Created by Artifice in 1999, PetitionOnline.com is a living experiment in true online democracy. With many thousands of active petitions and more than 10 million signatures collected, the site is supported primarily by generous contributions from its worldwide users.

In addition to product development and media publishing, Artifice allocates a significant percentage of our budget to long-term research in market-transforming new technologies, through projects like the CDEAT project co-sponsored with the California Energy Commission.

We believe in what we're doing, and hope you find it useful. We always appreciate your comments and suggestions, so please drop us a line anytime.

Let your imagination soar! And come back to earth gently, with a smile.

Best wishes,

Kevin Matthews
President and CEO
Artifice, Inc.
matthews@artifice.com

541-3345-7421 vox
541-345-7438 fax
P.O. Box 1588
Eugene, OR 97440-1588
USA

http://www.artifice.com/about_artifice.html