The original idea for Canvas came from Jorge Miranda, Manuel Menendez, and Joaquin DeSoto, the founders of Deneba Systems Inc. of Miami Florida, for Apple's Macintosh computers—part of the wave of programs that made the desktop publishing revolution.
[3][4] It is used for illustration, page layout, animation, presentations, and publications in printed and World Wide Web formats.
At Version 5, Canvas was completely rewritten for both platforms and included a QuickDraw 3D-based palette for creating 3D primitives and renderings.
[7] At version 8, it was the first[citation needed] of the complex graphics programs to be "Carbonized"[8] to run on both Classic and Mac OS X.
The once-optional Scientific Imaging module is now integrated into Canvas and provides enhanced input-output filters for file formats commonly used in science and engineering visualization.