Re: gEDA-user: STEP Format? [WAS: Re: PCB+GL+3D Packages??]

[kai-martin knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Griessen wrote:

> STL seems to work fine for those shapes - your tool just chooses
> triangles that are long and skinny to accurately model the side
> of a cylinder for instance.
 
... and the file size explodes. If the wires of thru hole components 
are supposed to look vaguely realistic on zoom, at least 20 triangles 
per cylinder are needed. The 90° bend needs another 40 triangles. Every 
triangle requires 3 nodes and every node includes three coordinates 
plus orientation. That way, the stl size of a simple resistor may 
easily xceed the memory footprint of its footprint by two orders of 
magnitude. 


> The other formats are wanted just for interoperability and
> translation.  VRML might do fine for that.

VRML is very similar to STL in that both are formats to export
from 3D CAD applications to rendering software like blender. They 
both communicate just meshes, no objects. Beause of this, they 
are they are less useful as imports for 3D editing. From mechanical 
point of view these mesh formats are one-way roads.

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
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