CAD file formats

[MisterKoenig]

I am trying to find information on several different CAD file formats. Primarily IGES (wire and surface) and STEP. What I would like to know is what do they stand for and what are the capabilities? I would appreciate any help you can give me.
Thanks.

 

[MadMango]

IGES stands for Intial Graphics Exchange Specification, more info can be found at

http://www.nist.gov/iges/

STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data) is an international standard that defines a neutral file format for the exchange of geometric, topological, and annotation data.

Good info site:

http://step.nasa.gov/application_notes/mcad_translation.html

"The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[zuardy]

yup, MadMango is right. My two cents on this :
both of the file formats are used for CAD-file exchange as stated in their abreviation. IGES is older then STEP, even though it is widely used as standard format in many cases. The other data exchange file format is DXF (Data Exchange File) from Autodesk and ACIS, sorry don't know the abreviation and its relatively new.

regards