About

Gradientspace Corp is a software company located in Toronto, Canada. We are building Creative Tools for Realtime Computer Graphics.

People

Ryan Schmidt - Interim CEO

Ryan studied Computer Science at the University of Calgary (BSc, MSc), and then the University of Toronto (PhD), and finally at UC Berkeley (Postdoc). His research focused on Geometry Processing, 3D User Interfaces, and Interactive 3D Modeling. In addition to publications at SIGGRAPH and other major conferences, his research resulted in the software tool Meshmixer, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2011. Ryan joined Autodesk as the head of the Design & Fabrication Research Group in Autodesk Research, while also continuing to develop Autodesk Meshmixer. This work resulted in millions of downloads, wide use of Meshmixer in many industries, and significant advances in 3D printing, such as one of the first Branching Support Structure methods. Ryan filed over 30 patents with Autodesk, and contributed to many other Autodesk products such as Maya, Mudbox, 3DS Max, and Fusion 360.

Ryan left Autodesk in 2016 to start Gradientspace Corp, where he simultaneously developed a hybrid VR/desktop 3D modeling tool (Simplex) and a desktop printing app (Cotangent), based on a new 3D Printing slicer (gsSlicer). These projects were built on top of a C# geometry library he also developed (geometry3Sharp). These projects have all been open-sourced (github). geometry3Sharp is now widely used across many industries, and gsSlicer has been used as a basis for several projects and startups in the Additive Manufacturing space.

Gradientspace was bootstrapped via consulting projects with startups and non-profits. Ryan consulted with Archform on the initial design and development of their 3D-printed Dental Aligner planning tool and manufacturing pipeline, which were instrumental in Archform’s acceptance into the YCombinator accelerator program (YC W18), and later fundraising efforts. Ryan also worked with Nia Technologies to develop their process and tools for designing 3D-printed lower-limb prosthetics. Early successes in the developing world resulted in Nia receiving significant funding from Grand Challenges Canada and the Autodesk Foundation.

In 2018 Ryan joined Epic Games, and Gradientspace went on hiatus. Ryan was personally recruited by Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to create a new suite of 3D Modeling tools directly inside of the Unreal Editor. The small team assembled for this project created a state-of-the-art Geometry kernel (GeometryCore) and suite of geometry algorithms (GeometryProcessing plugin) inside Unreal Engine (initially ported from the geometry3Sharp library). Ryan also created the Interactive Tools Framework, which greatly simplified development of creative Tools in Unreal Editor that can also be used at Runtime (ie in-game), and now powers many parts of Unreal Editor.

Modeling Mode was built on this stack of technologies, and included a wide range of 3D editing and creation tools, from simple primitives to 3D sculpting and poly-modeling, as well as support functions like UV generation and texture baking. Ryan invented several novel geometry algorithms and user interfaces as part of this effort. Many aspects of Modeling Mode were driven by Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), Epic’s Fortnite-based Metaverse/UGC platform. In addition to from-scratch content creation, a particular focus of Modeling Mode was modification and customization of asset-library content in a UGC context, which is unlike any traditional DCC modeler. This combination of broad and novel technical workflows proved quite useful to many segments of the UE userbase, and by the fall of 2023, UE Modeling Mode had over 100k monthly active users.

Ryan also participated in several of Epic’s games and demos, often being called in to sort out “geometry emergencies” that arose in Fortnite and other Special Projects. He developed the Approximate Actors Hierarchical LOD (HLOD) method for the Matrix Awakens demo, which was instrumental in this demo shipping at an acceptable quality level (all buildings >750m from the player are swapped out for ApproximateActors-generated HLODs). For LEGO Fortnite, he developed another new LOD strategy based on incremental brick approximation and merging, which allowed the LEGO building kit prefabs to be optimized, and later scaled down for non-Nanite devices, without dramatic quality sacrifices.

To facilitate scripting and automation of all this new geometry technology, Ryan created Geometry Script, a library of geometry & mesh manipulation nodes for UE’s Blueprint visual scripting. Geometry Script quickly grew into widespread use both inside Epic (where it has been instrumental to Fortnite, LEGO Fortnite, and every other major Epic project produced in the past few years) and outside (widely used by various AAA game studios). To facilitate end-user tool building in Unreal Editor, Ryan created the Scriptable Tools framework, which exposes the Interactive Tools Framework via Blueprints.

In January of 2024, Ryan left Epic and returned to Gradientspace Corp, where he is applying his 20+ years of experience in Creative Tools and Geometric Computing to the Games and Realtime-content industries.