CompuServe Messages

As for "loss of functionality," a day or two ago I had a rude customer ask about InterChange's conversion methodology, and when I explained that we didn't translate UV coordinates at this time, they said "So what good is it?" In my first posting, I gave specific examples of difficult questions for any proposed 3D file format standard: smoothing, triangle versus polygons, etc. In this posting, you made general statements about how a standard might be firm yet flexible, backwards- and forwards compatible, useful and not limiting. If you want to get specific, I'm all ears, and I'm willing to jump on details. 🙂 A good question to ask yourself along the way is "How is this better than DXF?" I've sometimes thought that the easiest path to a 3D file format standard might be to usurp parts of DXF. It already allows user-defined data in several ways. All you need to do is define and promote the use of new extended data that might store surface info like colors, smoothing, and better object names. Since most companies have DXF in/out already, it would be relatively easy for them to add small amounts of code to handle this new extension, and it would buy a great deal in terms of info exchange.