[freearchitecture] VectorSection

[Eric Wilhelm]

# from Steve Hall
# on Tuesday 02 May 2006 07:18 pm:

>If I'm designing a new CAD software, not only is my file format
>changing, but also the vector I'm making to the hub. But it seems that
>the hub would always be developing faster than any one project, since
>it has to react to each vector. But I need the hub to stand still for
>a development cycle and be stable for any particular release I may
>have. At the same time, I may also want another version available to
>match a third app on the same host.

The intent is that the hub structure be basically frozen at some point.  
Hopefully, this is able to express everything that you need in your 
software (or at least be extended by your software without disrupting 
other apps.)  This assumes that you do indeed save directly to the hub 
format (ultimately, that's what everyone should do.)

Note that there is not simply one hub.  That would either be too 
complicated or too simple to be universally useful.  Bridging between 
hubs allows sane connection of diverse apps (such as 3D surface 
modelers and 2D desktop graphics) to the extent that such a connection 
makes sense.  IE, you may want a projection of outlines from 
3ds/.blend/vrml to a dxf or svg format.  You could certainly take only 
the 3D faces (sans textures and animation) into dxf, but 3D doesn't 
exist in svg or pdf.

At the moment, it is just an underfunded file converter :-)  Once 
existing data and programs are reasonably connected, we can work out 
exactly what it takes to achieve real interoperability.  Yes, that 
probably means iterating the hub format a few times, but ultimately 
they just become bridged from older versions (see for example sqlite 2 
vs 3.)

--Eric
-- 
As an old bass player friend of mine used to say: throw money, don't 
clap.
--Tony Parisi
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