RE: STL

From: Brand Allen-EAB009 (Allen.Brand@motorola.com)
Date: Wed Oct 10 2001 - 18:13:37 EEST


It's a free country. Let .stl stand for whatever you desire.

Allen W. Brand, Sr.
Technical Supervisor / Lab Manager
Motorola Energy Systems Group
1700 Belle Meade Court
Lawrenceville, GA. 30043
(770) 338-3088
email: Allen.Brand@.motorola.com

-----Original Message-----
From: C. Brock Rooney [mailto:brock@mich.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 10:34 AM
To: Vadim Pikhovich
Cc: rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: Re: STL

At 08:01 AM 10/10/01 -0500, Vadim Pikhovich wrote
>
>STL - stereolithorgaphy (or more commonly, standard) tessellation language.
>
Nope.
As pointed out by Lex Lennings, it is from StereoLithography.
I think the definition was added to the 1989 specification revision because
people (probably Doug Mitchell) kept asking 3D, "What does STL stand for?".
Another quote from the Specification:
  "CAD vendors have written interfaces to convert their fully
   surfaced or solid models into a readable format for
   StereoLithography. This readable format is known as
   a StereoLithography file (.STL). The file extension (.STL)
   is optional and may vary among interfaces."

The StereoLithography Interface Specification Oct. 1989 does not even mention
"tessellation" at all. It refers to "facets" and "faceted data" and
"triangle data", and "triangular faceted model"

In any case, calling STL a Language is pushing it. It is a Data format, not
a language.

While some might find it convenient to obscure the origins of the STL file
format, I think it is only fair to give credit where credit is due.

C. Brock Rooney, Pres., Brock Rooney & Associates Inc. (Brockware)
        915 Westwood Birmingham MIchigan 48009 USA
 (248)645-0236 fax(248)645-9020 email brockware@ameritech.net

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