Listening to: Breakthru - Queen

A question I have been asking myself over the weekend is whether or not you’d ever see products shared across the web in the same way as MP3s. If so, what sort of file format would you need? I have come to the conclusion (and it might because I have typed ‘make’, ‘make install’ once to many times) that a product file will probably look a lot like a software application - rather than being a single file it will be a directory structure that contains a package of things that you would need. A product needs a bunch of info. For example:

• Design files
• Bill of Materials (x N)
• Assembly docs
• Instruction manuals

So for any sensible product description you’re looking at a range of files - it doesn’t make too much sense to try and jam that into one file.

So as a first cut I think a product package might be a tar.gz file containing:

Product Name/
	bin/
	bom/
	src/
	tmp/
	usr/
		assembly/
		make/
		use/

Product Name/bin
An optional translation of the design files into CNC code such as G-Code or SBP code. Some CNC type code is more efficient than others - so there is value in being able to distribute ‘binary’ versions of the cutting or disposition instructions.

Product Name/bom
A set of structures (like yaml or xml) that list the materials required for the product. This would include both the materials from which the product was cut or deposited and other items like electronics.

Product Name/src
The design files for the product.

Product Name/tmp
A temp directory that is used by parsing software - included to keep things tidy. The contents aren’t guaranteed to exist over time.

Product Name/usr/assembly
Assembly instructions for the product.

Product Name/usr/make
Other manufacturing instructions for the product.

Product Name/usr/use
Usage instructions for the product.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Ponoko, Speculative Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.