Practical Aspects of Using the STEP Standard

Abstract

The first Technical Note in this series 1 introduced the standard ISO 10303, informally known as STEP. It explained the nature of the standard, and described its structure and content. The present contribution concerns some of the practical aspects of the use of STEP. Some of the problems that are encountered in exchanging product models between different systems raise interesting research issues. To start with, the nature of the STEP transfer process will be considered in more detail than in the previous Note. Recall that a STEP transfer uses a neutral file approach. This means that a model in the native format of the sending system must be translated into the neutral STEP format by a program called a preprocessor. The STEP file is then read into the receiving system, where another program called a postprocessor translates it into the native format of the second system. The relationship between the various representations and the processors involved is illustrated in Fig. 1. Several kinds of problems may arise in either of the two phases of the overall translation process, as detailed in the following paragraphs.