Re: Inline support for vector files

Steve Waterbury ([email protected])
Mon, 21 Nov 1994 15:08:48 -0500


I took the liberty of forwarding a couple of the messages from this
thread to the CALS Drawings and Graphics Committee (DAGC). This is a
response from one of the members of that committee:

( ... if there are follow-up messages, please include the "Cc"
addressees from this message, as they are not on www-talk, and I
would prefer not to be the go-between! Tnx :-)

--Steve.

oo _\o
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Stephen C. Waterbury EPIMS: EEE Parts Information
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>From [email protected] Fri Nov 18 17:48:38 1994
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Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 15:47:44 -0700
From: Lofton Henderson <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: DAGC: WWW Info
Status: RO

The recent mail about WWW and the search for a graphical file format
illustrates a certain lack of awareness of the status and capabilities
of CGM. So far, all of the requirements which have been articulated
are directly met either by CGM:1992 itself, or one of the industry
profiles. Probably, SVF could be defined as a Profile of CGM.

I will address one specific point of misinformation, from the mail dialog...

Chris Lilley wrote:

>But yes, CGM does not have hooks for URLs and so on, nor would it be simple or
>timely to add them. On the other hand, used in an HTML 3 FIG element CGM could
>have hotspots added fairly easily.

This is wrong. CGM:1992 Amendment 2 has finished processing, final text
has been reviewed and will soon (already?) go to Geneva. Amd.2 is a simple
addition to the standard to define Application Structures. The purpose of
these (or one purpose) is exactly to enable structuring and hot links.
Products are already being built and sold which use these standard CGM
features!

>A new format is fine if it does a different job, and if it is possible to
>convert to and from it on multiple platforms. I assume Softsource have addressed
>this issue, and their CAD programs will not be the only software to read and
>write the format.

It is hard to believe that the world needs yet another graphical file
format. Sitting next to me is the 900-page Encyclopedia of Graphical
File Formats, which describes approximately 90 graphics formats.

Regards,
Lofton Henderson

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