Maximum number of triangles in a stl file?

From: John Dickinson (dickijk@bille.ppc.engga.uwo.ca)
Date: Mon Jun 03 1996 - 18:24:57 EEST

Dear All,

I have two quick questions. I have a copy of the Stereolithography
Interface Spec. from 3D Systems and reading through it I find I have two
questions:
1) on page 4 it says that:
"Triangle Information
The triangle counter is 2 to the 16th unsigned integer (65,536)."

but on page 9 in the binary specification for an STL file it says:
length 4 bytes (long unsigned integer) for number of facets.

So if I am creating stl files, is the maximum number of triangles 2^16 or
2^32?

2) what is the current best resolution of rapid prototyping machines
using stl files? I believe it is .005mm.

Thanks for any help... John 

--
-((Insert standard disclaimer here))-|--- Charles V (Charles the Wise) ----
John Kenneth Dickinson               |              (1337-1380)
Grad. Student Mech. Eng. U.W.O.      |   "I speak Spanish to God, Italian
now: dickijk@bille.ppc.engga.uwo.ca  |        to woman, French to men and
work num:(519) 661-2111 x8308        |               German to my horse."

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:37:22 EEST