kevin@LOGICON.ARPA (Kevin McIntyre) (11/22/88)
I hadn't planned on posting anything about IGES and DXF but since I have only seen one posting which was a little incorrect I decided I would let everyone know what IGES and DXF are. The format is quite developed. Thousands of man years have been spent on it and millions of dollars by hundreds of companies. I personally spent three years working on it for two different companies. Note that there are some problems with the spec and a "new version" of IGES (now called PDES) will be forth coming. The problems of IGES are due to the many different vendor translators and interpretations of the spec. thus causing discrepancies in the translations of graphics data. If you are planning to write a DXF or IGES translator be prepared to spend a whole lot of time. I would attend their quarterly IGES conferences (alternate between East and West coast pretty much). As a testament to the complexity of IGES, there is not one vendor that has a complete IGES translator that will pre and post translate all the entities. IGES stands for the Initial Graphics Exchange Specification. It has been ANSI approved (an older version of the spec.) and you can get in touch with a person who can either send you a copy or put you in contact with someone who can, at the National Bureau of Standards. Contact Gaylen Rinaudot (don't tell her I told you to call). She's the IGES Project coordinator. NBS, NEL, CME, Engineering CAD/CAM Systems Group, Building 220, Room A-353, Gaithersburg, MD. 20899. (301) 975-3564. This information was correct as of last year. Hope it helps. --Have fun, I did. Kevin internet: kevin@logicon.arpa uucp: nosc!logicon.arpa!kevin