Cylinderformat

Cylinderformat is a file format designed for storing 3D data defined in cylindrical coordinates. It aims to provide an interoperable, extensible representation for workflows involving rotationally symmetric geometries such as pipes, turbines, and borehole models. While not an official standard, cylinderformat has appeared in technical discussions as a way to improve exchange between modeling, simulation, and visualization tools.

The core idea of cylinderformat is to organize data into a header and one or more data blocks. The header carries metadata such as format version, units, axis orientation, and the chosen coordinate system. Data blocks contain coordinates, topology, and optional attributes. Coordinates may be stored directly in cylindrical form (r, theta, z) or as Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z) with a defined conversion rule upon loading. Blocks can be structured by object, layer, or tile to support large datasets.

Data types typically include arrays of numbers for coordinates, connectivity indices for meshes, and optional per-vertex or per-face attributes such as normals, colors, or scalar fields. The format can be represented in a human-readable text form or a compact binary form. Optional compression and chunking are supported to improve storage efficiency and performance. Explicit endianness and unit metadata help maintain consistency across platforms.

Cylinderformat is used in contexts such as computer-aided design, finite element or finite volume meshes in cylindrical coordinates, GIS datasets with radial breakouts, and 3D printing pipelines that model rotational components. Adoption remains limited, and there is no single governing body maintaining the format; it is primarily discussed in academic and open-source circles.

See also: related coordinate systems and data formats such as GLTF, OBJ, STL, HDF5, and NetCDF.