[freearchitecture] Re: Re: x3d-cad vs. step

[Lars O. Grobe]

A very old threat.... but I have one question to those STEP-Gurus out there:

Is it possible to include scripts into a step file?

The background of my thought:

CAD is getting really useful if you are not only able to work on 
geometry, but if you can get parametric objects that become application 
specific. In today's CADs, these objects are application-specific, the 
routine to create geometry from object parameters is in the application. 
This means that all exchange formats contain only the resulting 
geometry, not e.g. a stair, wall, wheel, engine object.

If I look at e.g. html, there has been a possibility for developers to 
include content-generating routines into the content for a while. There 
is a library of available function call present in every modern browser 
to modify e.g. the content (DOM), so I can put some intelligency into 
the content file and do not have to write (and install) a plug-in for 
everything.

Now I wonder if something like that could not get introduced into CAD, 
in an open way. And here it comes to the STEP format. I would like to 
have a geometry of a stair in the STEP-file, and as an attribute the 
code that generates the stair. Than I could view the stair in every 
STEP-capable CAD, and in those able to interprete the code, could 
natively modify the stairs by changing parameters (increase the number 
of raisers etc).

Is this possible with STEP?

TIA & CU Lars.

P.S.: I am crossposting this to the new group "open-cad-format" on google.