Autodesk acquires mystery tech from T-Splines
Autodesk has bought undisclosed assets from T-Splines, the developer of the T-Splines modelling technology. So far as we can tell, the company itself has not been acquired.
A NURBS-like system for describing the form of a 3D surface, T-Splines enable artists to model detailed surfaces with fewer control points than conventional NURBS.
T-Splines currently sells implentations of the technology as add-ons for Rhino and SolidWorks, and the Autodesk announcement mentions that it expects the acquisition to strengthen its own competing digital prototyping products (that is, AutoCAD and Inventor).
Other than that, the official Autodesk announcement offers no details about its future plans.
However, a few years ago, T-Splines did offer a Maya plugin, so there is a possibility that some of this technology could eventually end up in its DCC products – later, if not sooner.