Architosh editor posted this rumor (on 3/5/02) to their forums:
I have superb inside information that Apple is likely going to buy a market leading 3D modeling/rendering and animation application that is currently available for the Mac or Mac OS X.
While messageboard posts are generally the bottom of the rumor-barrel... posts from webmasters have a bit more credibility... and of course, the writer himself was not sure enough to make a full news story out of it.... so take it with a grain of salt....