Kitware
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| Kitware | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kitware |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Founders | Will Schroeder, Ken Martin, Bill Lorensen |
| Headquarters | Clifton Park, New York |
| Industry | Computer software, Scientific computing |
| Products | VTK, ParaView, CMake |
Kitware is an American software company specializing in open-source software for scientific visualization, medical imaging, computer vision, and computational fluid dynamics. Founded in 1998 by researchers and engineers from projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Syracuse University, the company has collaborated with national laboratories, academic institutions, and industrial partners on software infrastructure used across NASA, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Energy programs. Kitware is known for creating foundational tools that underpin research and product development in organizations such as GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, and Philips.
History
Kitware was formed by developers associated with the Visualization Toolkit project and emerged during a period when institutions like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were investing in shared software infrastructure. Early milestones included contributions to VTK and collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Over time, Kitware expanded partnerships to include universities such as North Carolina State University, University of Utah, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Yale University, and engaged with federal agencies including National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Key personnel have interacted with projects at MIT, Stanford University, Harvard University, and Carnegie Mellon University while participating in conferences like SIGGRAPH, RSNA, MICCAI, IEEE CVPR, and SC (Supercomputing Conference).
Products and Projects
Kitware’s flagship software offerings originated from community projects including VTK (Visualization Toolkit), ParaView, and CMake, which are widely used alongside tools from GNU Project, LLVM Project, and Boost. Kitware develops components for ITK (Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit) workflows used in conjunction with 3D Slicer and Fiji (software), and integrates with platforms like OpenCV and TensorFlow. Projects frequently interoperate with simulation suites from ANSYS, OpenFOAM, and COMSOL Multiphysics, and visualization systems such as VisIt and ParaView Glance. Kitware also contributes to standards and formats including DICOM, HDF5, and OpenGL, and supports toolchains that include GitHub, GitLab, and Jenkins.
Research and Development
Kitware conducts applied research in areas such as medical image analysis linked to National Institutes of Health initiatives, computer vision aligned with DARPA programs, and computational geometry relevant to NASA missions. Its R&D collaborations include projects funded by European Commission frameworks, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency challenges, and Horizon 2020 consortia, often working with partners like Fraunhofer Society, CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), and ETH Zurich. Research outputs intersect with work at Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, and Columbia University, and are presented at venues such as NeurIPS, ICCV, ECCV, SPIE, and ISBI.
Business Model and Services
Kitware operates a services-centered business model delivering software engineering consulting, custom development, and training for clients in sectors including healthcare, defense, and energy. The company provides contract research for institutions like National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, and commercial partners such as General Electric, Siemens, and IBM. Services include enterprise support for open-source projects comparable to offerings by Red Hat, Cloudera, and SUSE, and professional services similar to Accenture and Capgemini in custom scientific software delivery. Kitware also pursues grant-funded development alongside organizations like The Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation.
Corporate Structure and Locations
Headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, the company maintains offices and research groups in multiple locations, reflecting collaborations with regional hubs including Raleigh, North Carolina, New York City, Toulouse, France, and Kitware Europe (region), as well as ties to innovation centers at Silicon Valley, Boston, and Research Triangle Park. Kitware’s organizational structure comprises engineering teams, research scientists, project managers, and business development staff working with governance models found in technology firms such as Canonical (company), Mozilla Foundation, and The Apache Software Foundation. Leadership engages with advisory boards drawn from academia and industry including representatives from Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, and University of Oxford.
Community and Open Source Contributions
Kitware is deeply involved in open-source ecosystems, contributing to projects alongside organizations like The Linux Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, and OpenStack Foundation. The company supports community governance practices used by GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, and participates in standards efforts with ISO, IEEE, and OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). Kitware staff author papers and tutorials for conferences such as SIGGRAPH, RSNA, and MICCAI, and collaborate with open-source projects like VTK, ParaView, CMake, ITK, and OpenCV. Engagements include mentoring through programs similar to Google Summer of Code and partnerships with university labs at MIT CSAIL, Stanford AI Lab, and CMU Robotics Institute.