This document defines the syntax and semantics of a file format for the 3D visualization and interrogation of lightweight geometry and product manufacturing information derived from CAD systems, using visualization software tools that do not need the full capability of a CAD system.

This document has been adopted as a 3D visualization capability in addition to the ISO 10303 series.

The ISO 10303 series are the ISO standards adopted for the engineering data exchange, sharing and long-term archiving of product definition information throughout the product lifecycle.

In this document 3D visualization is defined as the visual presentation on a screen or another media of graphical and textual 3 dimensional representations of a set of data representing an object, information or results of a computational process in order to enable decision process by a human looking at the data visualized in a medium.

The file format supports the following information:

—    facet information (triangles), stored with geometry compression techniques;

—    visual attributes such as lights, textures and materials;

—    product manufacturing information, such as dimensions, tolerances and other attributes;

—    boundary representation (b-rep) solid model shape representations.             Several alternatives are available, including a representation based on the geometry standard defined in ISO 10303;

—    configuration representations;

—    delivery methods such as asynchronous streaming of content.

The document does not specify the implementation of, or definition of a run-time architecture for viewing or processing of the file format.