Richer data in .3d file (was Re: LURD data)

[Olly Betts]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 08:20:20PM +0000, John Pybus wrote:
> Any thoughts on supporting arbitrary metadata in the output .3d format?
> 
> I'd like to be able to associate things like who found the cave, and 
> what grade it was surveyed to with sets of stations and legs.  I'd then 
> want to specify how these will be displayed by Aven with some sort of 
> stylesheet.
> 
> I intend to try and add enough for my needs anyhow but would like to 
> hear your opinions on extending the file format.

I think the key question is whether to essentially keep the current 3d
format and try to extend it, or to replace it with something better
thought out (for example the current format stores the coordinates for
the ends of each leg, so you don't know which of a set of equated
stations is actually the one used to define that leg, which sucks for
relating back to the original data).

We can replace the bad bits, but there comes a point when it's simpler
to start again with the knowledge of problems to avoid.  I'm not really
decided on this.  I'm currently thinking I'll try adding dates, errors,
and LRUD and see how it looks then...

Longer term, the plan is to consider using a database to store the
processed survey data - using something like mysql or sqlite perhaps.
It's probably more efficient if the 3d format can take us to that point,
even if we don't go the database route.

Cheers,
    Olly