Mathematical Applications Group

MAGi or MAGi/SynthaVision) was an early computer technology company founded in 1966 by Dr. Philip Mittelman and located in Elmsford, New York, where it was evaluating nuclear radiation exposure.

SynthaVision was one of the first systems to implement a ray tracing algorithmic approach to hidden surface removal in rendering images.

The combination of the solid modeling and ray tracing (later to become plane firing) made it a very robust system that could generate high quality images.

MAGI also created a polygonal/2D test in the late 70s with Warner Bros. animator Chuck Jones, featuring the Coyote and the Road Runner.

Since SynthaVision was easy to animate and could create fluid motion and movement, MAGi was assigned with most of Tron's action sequences.

At MAGi, Larry Elin directed Chris Wedge and Jan Carle and produced a 3D background pencil test based on Disney's story animatics.

Concurrently an ink and paint system was written by Christine Chang, Jodi Slater and Ken Perlin for production.

In 1984, MAGi opened an office in Los Angeles, California, headed by Richard Taylor, who worked as special effects supervisor while at Triple-I.

Taylor, Wedge and Carle directed a test for a Disney film Something Wicked This Way Comes, but the software and computing hardware proved insufficient for the proposed animation and effects.

Also in 1984 Michael Ferraro and Tom Bisogno began production on a short film, “First Flight”, for the SIGGRAPH '84 Electronic Theater.