While I think it could be a good idea to have standards such as IGES and
CGM as MIME types, and have extensions in them for URLs, I think
a warning is appropriate here:
These formats are in no way "Simple Vector file formats" as the subject
suggests! Most CAD packages can output subsets of some of these
standards, and can then read back what they wrote. But you are very
lucky if a package can read what another package wrote, even
if both use the same standard.
It has to be said that in general, CAD system providers are not
very eager to give full convertibility to other systems, because
they are afraid of loosing their installed customer base.
However, it is clear that the main problem when trying to support
a full standard is the complexity of these standards. If most CAD
systems don't give full support for reading, I doubt whether an
average or even a high-end WWW browser will ever be able to
offer this functionality.
Regards, Martin.
----
Dr.sc. Martin J. Du"rst ' , . p y f g c R l / =
Institut fu"r Informatik a o e U i D h T n S -
der Universita"t Zu"rich ; q j k x b m w v z
Winterthurerstrasse 190 (the Dvorak keyboard)
CH-8057 Zu"rich-Irchel Tel: +41 1 257 43 16
S w i t z e r l a n d Fax: +41 1 363 00 35 Email: mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch
$@%F%e!<%k%9%H!&%^!<%F%#%s!&%d%3%V!J%A%e!<%j%C%RBg3X>pJs2J3X2J!K(J
----