Re: STL for ever?

From: Fusioneng@aol.com
Date: Sun Dec 19 1999 - 05:34:13 EET


RP-ML;

This subject has been hashed around quite a bit. My humble opinion is that
the ISO (international standards organization) has addressed the issues of
transporting cad files from one system to another very well with the iges and
the PDES/STEP worldwide standards which all of us should be using to
transport files to each other. Each company providing CAD software must
conform to strict standards which are supposed to be verified and maintained.
There is currently no other standards in place that equal this. An example
is DXF which is not any type of standard at all. Every year Autodesk come out
with a new version of their software their DXF changes slightly. Most of the
DXF translators out there from other vendors were quickly written for (if you
are lucky) Autocad version 12 so called standards. The other cad vendors
typically do nothing to update or maintain their DXF because there is no
certification process in place. When a CAD vendor comes out with a new
version of their software they typically just patch their DXF to work with
the new version and re-compile it into their product. There is no external
verification. This is usually the reason it is free along with VDL , SAT ,
STL , and PAR so called standards. My company produces STL files as only a
last stage in the process done just prior to starting our SLA machine. I do
accept STL files for part builds but if I have any problems I am very quick
to throw them back at the customer. I don't feel it is our responsability to
fix bad STL files. Since STL is no type of standard and there is no one out
there forcing any type of compliance to the CAD vendors I for one don't count
on too much from it. Especially since there are worldwide standards in place
which work very well which all of us should be using yet most of us don't.
my two cents
Bob Morton
Fusion Engineering

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