Software for BeOS and Zeta

Xentronix built imaging and audio software for BeOS, the media operating system from Be Inc., and for Zeta, its commercial successor from yellowTAB and magnussoft.

That platform is gone and so is active development. This page keeps a record of what we made. Nothing here is for sale any more.

Amer.rdf* [50%] — Refraction 1.0

$Refraction 1.0 on Zeta: a photo of a river bank being painted over, with the toolbox, layers, colour picker and brush options windows open$

Applications

Two professional tools for a new desktop

The plan was a photo suite first, then multimedia. The photo suite grew far bigger than planned and took years longer.

Refraction

Imaging & photo retouchingR1 2005 · 1.0.2 finalEUR 79.95

A layered image editor for professional designers and home users alike, built natively on the BeOS interface kit and the Zeta locale kit.

Unlimited layers with blending modes and channel manipulation
A natural-media brush engine with animated brushes, pressure and direction control for graphics tablets
Selections by rectangle, ellipse, lasso, polygon and magic wand, with an adjustable RGB, HSV, hue or luminance threshold
Perspective and lens correction, colour correction and dozens of filters
Switchable between sixteen languages at runtime

	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	Pentium MMX 200 MHz	Pentium III 1 GHz
Memory	64 MB	256 MB
Disk	20 MB	100 MB
Display	16-bit colour	24 or 32-bit colour

Beta 8 — 2004

$Refraction beta 8 with the reworked toolbar, layer window and tool settings$

$The Refraction retail box: digital imaging software$

The retail box followed the download edition in August 2005. In 2006 Refraction moved to magnussoft, who carried it forward on Zeta.

SampleStudio Pro

Audio editingZeta RC3announced at EUR 49

A fast audio editor built on the Zeta Media Kit, handled like a tape deck: drag clips around, drop files on a window to open them, zoom in far enough and redraw the waveform with a pencil.

Stereo and mono editing on an internal 32-bit path
Up to 192 kHz / 32-bit per channel
RealtimeFx effects and VST plugin hosting
Reads sample libraries from Akai samplers
Runs on a Pentium with 32 MB of memory

SampleStudio

Wave editors

Three SampleStudio editing windows with stereo and mono waveforms

Games & VST

Smaller releases

Three VST plugins were ported to BeOS with their authors' permission and given away free, so SampleStudio users had real instruments and effects on day one.

Quadrix

Puzzle game

Quadrix

Rotate four-coloured disks to line up three or more; chains that fall into place score double.

ZR-3

VST instrument · free

ZR-3

A drawbar organ with two manuals, pedals, percussion, the "Mr. Valve" overdrive and a rotating-speaker effect. Ported with thanks to Rumpelrausch Täips.

CamelPhat Free

VST effect · free

CamelPhat Free

Camel Audio's multi-effect unit, brought to BeOS with their permission.

Palancar VST Pack

8 VST plugins · free

Palancar Pack

Eight effect plugins from Palancar Wares, ported as one free package.

Timeline

From beta to magnussoft

18 May 2004
Refraction beta 8: final stagesInternal rewrites for stability, a new toolbar, layer window and tool settings.
Oct 2004
Systems 2004, MunichBeta 8 shown on the yellowTAB stand, B3/500.
3 Nov 2004
Refraction beta 8 releasedRewritten tools and icons, native Zeta locale kit support.
17 Jun 2005
Zeta goes goldRefraction's own release could finally be scheduled; the forums came back online.
13 Aug 2005
Refraction goes goldNew tools, faster and more stable, a retail box from 15 August.
Oct 2005
Systems 2005, MunichWorkshops on Refraction at the Zeta stand, hall A3.
2 Nov 2005
Refraction 1.0.2Service release fixing the input_server lockup, for Zeta and BeOS.
19 Jul 2006
Refraction moves to magnussoftXentronix narrowed its focus to multimedia and web services; magnussoft GmbH continued Refraction on Zeta.