HDF5 as a binary format for STEP/EXPRESS product data

STEP is an ISO Standard for the computer-interpretable representation and exchange of industrial product data. The HDF Group is involved in two projects to examine the use of HDF5 for representing large volume datasets with information models written using the ISO EXPRESS language, which is the data modeling language for STEP.

One project, sponsored by the European Union, seeks to define a mapping of EXPRESS to HDF5, to propose this mapping as an ISO standard, and to create an open-source toolkit mapping EXPRESS to HDF5.

The second, sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration, seeks to investigate the implications of

• Using HDF5 for large objects commonly occurring in product model data
• Using HDF5 as a container for a heterogeneous collection of records with product models, including STEP files, photos, schematics, and other documents. The poster will summarize on these two projects.

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