Spectacular computer-generated scenes from movies like ‘Iron Man 3’ and ‘Gravity’ are made possible thanks to technology from the Spanish firm Solid Angle.

Gravity, the recent film starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, is renowned for its special effects. These striking images were made possible thanks to a Spanish company called Solid Angle, which is behind a technology that its founder named the ‘Arnold’ renderer.

The company was founded in 2009. However, Arnold’s origins date back 15 years, during which time its founder perfected the software’s techniques for synthesizing images by computer (producing an image or sequence of images by calculating illumination and shadowing, based on 3D models of geometric objects plus the specifications of the lighting and cameras that will be used for a scene).

Thus began a long journey that took Solid Angle to countries such as Canada and the United States. The company’s software was so highly prized that it sold a license to Sony Pictures Imageworks, where the company founder collaborated for five years.

Today Solid Angle, based in Madrid, has more than 200 customers in 30 countries as well as a marketing and sales office in London. 95% of its sales are outside of Spain. Among its clients are Sony, Industrial Light & Magic (a division of Lucasfilm), Framestore, Digital Domain and Sega. It has been used on films such as ‘Star Trek’, ‘Elysium’, ‘Iron Man 3’ and the drawings for ‘Hotel Transylvania’, as a few examples. In the future the company is considering opening an office in the United States as well as entering the Asian market.