Originally called Real 3D, it was developed for the Amiga computer and later also for Linux, Irix, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
It was initially written in 1983 on Commodore 64 by two Finnish brothers, Juha and Vesa Meskanen.
Juha's brother Vesa joined the development and abandoned his university career to start the Realsoft company in 1989.
It featured constructive solid geometry, support for smooth curved quadric surfaces and a ray-tracer for photo realistic rendering.
It took full advantage of the multi-tasking abilities of the Amiga - allowing the user to continue editing a scene on another window while it rendered.
The project involved a complete software rewrite, new object-oriented source code, platform independent design, modularity, and adoption of several other state-of–art development methods.
It was released on multiple platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Linux and SGI Irix.
It was also an important visual leap forward supporting full-color 32 bit icons.
[17] It introduced powerful parametric tools for plant modeling and building construction.
Jeff Paries of Computer Graphics World claimed version 4 is an excellent addition to your toolbox at a reasonable price.