What is a IGES File Type?
The IGES standard comes from the ICAM (Computer Assisted Integrated Manufacturing) project of the United States Air Force (USAF) in the 1970s. It was first used in the manufacture of aerospace parts. However, it is extended to other industries, such as automobile and machinery, after the release of the first official version of the Apos; IGES in 1980. The data files stored in the IGES are saved as IGES or .IGS files.
Although still in use today, the use of the IGES standard has significantly decreased since the late 1990s. The release of more efficient formats, such as STEP and Parasolid, and the lack of development (the last official release of D' IGES was released in 1996) are reasons for this.
You can open various CAD programs on Windows, such as Autodesk Fusion 360, IdeMK IGSViewer, and CADSoftTools ABViewer. You can open the IGES files in MacOS with Nemetschek VectorWorks and CADEX CADExange, or you can download the files in ShareCAD.org or CADEX Exchange Cloud and view them in a web browser.
Although IGES files are generally open to CAD software, they can also be opened to apos; help from a text editor since they are saved in text format. The content, however, will appear as text instead of dapos; a visual representation of dapos; a part. You can use Microsoft Wordpad, which comes with Windows, or Apple TextEdit, which comes with MacOS, to view plain text in the IGES files.
Many programs that can open IGES files can also convert them into d' other formats. CAD Exchange, for example, can open IGES files and save them in another format, such as .STP, .STEP, .JT, .SAT, .BREP or .STL.