Kai Krause
Kai Krause (born 14 March 1957) is a German software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., for his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design.
Kai Krause

Mprove · CC0
- Name
- Kai Krause
- Born
- 14 March 1957
- Birthplace
- Dortmund, Germany
- Nationality
- Germany
- Occupation
- computer scientist · software developer · musician
- Known for
- Kai's Power Tools
- Languages
- German · English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Kai Krause (born 14 March 1957) is a German software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., for his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design.
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Note VALÉORINE
Kai Krause (born 1957) is a computer scientist, musician and software developer, of German nationality. The computer scientist was born in Dortmund. Kai Krause lived in Bad Breisig.
Among the works is Kai's Power Tools. Languages used include English and German.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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wikidata · Q89167 · wikipedia · Kai Krause
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Kai Krause • Born — 14 March 1957 • Birthplace — Dortmund, Germany
Biography
Biography
Born in Dortmund, Germany, Krause moved to California, United States in 1976. He worked with early synthesizers and vocoders, and contributed sound effects to almost thirty records and movies. During the 1990s he ran a software company to develop tools for graphic designers. In February 2005, the "DEMO" conference acknowledged him as one of the Top 15 Innovators of the last 15 years. Krause has a Master's degree from the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California (1996), and an honorary doctorate from the University of Essen, Germany (1999). Today Krause lives and works in the 1000-year-old Rheineck Castle near Bonn in Germany.
History
History
The company which he co-founded, MetaCreations Corp., began as HSC Software, which released the first version of Kai's Power Tools in 1992. HSC released a second version, and the first version of Bryce, and several other titles before changing their name to MetaTools in 1995. This name remained until 1997, when a rapid series of mergers with Fractal Design, RayDream, Specular, and RTG (Real-Time Geometry) necessitated a new identity for the growing organization: MetaCreations. The interfaces of Krause's products used soft shadows, rounded corners, and translucency prior to their wider adoption. For the rest of the 1990s, MetaCreations continued to develop a variety of successful graphical software titles. Application and interfaces for which Krause was most directly responsible include Kai's Power Tools, Live Picture, Bryce, Kai's Power Show, Kai's Power Goo, Convolver, Kai's Photo Soap and Poser.
Software
Software
• Kai's Power Tools is now published by Corel Corporation, as "The Corel KPT Collection". • KPT Bryce is now published by Daz 3D, as simply "Bryce". • Kai's Power Show, Kai's Photo Soap and Kai's Power Goo are now property of Nuance Communications. They have been discontinued. • Frax, a fractal explorer for iOS
Identity
Identity
Kai Krause is recorded with the occupation computer scientist. Recorded with the occupation software developer. Recorded with the occupation musician. Recorded as computer scientist, software developer and musician.

Kai Krause of Metacreations, graphical interface designer and developer of new graphic tools and his then well-known "KPT"-plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop gives a demo of his new tool 'Bryce' at a German computer conference. Here he's seen on the left at a small stand with a few selected visitors. His machine is an Apple Macintosh computer.
Maximilian Schönherr

"A small contribution in the fight against rampant Immappancy, by Kai Krause " (given by author)
Kai Krause
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Bad Breisig
Residences
Dortmund.
Birth place
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q89167: Kai Krause
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Kai Krause”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Lombreglia, R. The Genie in the Machine The Atlantic Online, 1997-04-16
- 2.Borchers, Detlef Der Herr der Landschaften zeit.de, issue 30/1995 (German)
- 3.Müller-Prove, Matthias The Interface of Kai Krause's Software seminar paper 1999
- 4.Conference Honors Those Who Defined the Best Products and Technologies of the last 15 years.
- 5.iter9, LLC. About Frax: The Team.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
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