OpenDX is based on code and ideas found in the IBM Visualization Data Explorer program product. On May 18, 1999 IBM announced the withdrawal of the program product. A week later the creation of the IBM Open Visualization Data Explorer was announced in conjunction with the creation of the IBM Deep Computing Institute. IBM Visualization Data Explorer was originally written by a team at IBM Research. The Open Source project is now being led by one of its key members at IBM, Greg Abram. An incomplete list of other authors that have contributed to the open source code include: Peter Kirchner, David Thompson, Randall Hopper, Suhaib Siddiqi, Rick Scott