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#### 5.1.1.16 `ver`

WARNING: this functionality and implementation is EXPERIMENTAL. Behaviour may change in future releases.

The Ver input handler is intended for reading tables in the loosely-defined "ver" format. This is a family of more or less ad-hoc(?) ASCII-based formats for specifying the shapes of 3d bodies.

There are usually two parts to such files, which are read by this handler as two tables: a list of 3d vertices, and a list of polygons referencing these vertices. The first line contains two integers, for the vertex and face counts.

At present, the vertices are represented as 3 columns X,Y,Z, and the plates must be triangular and are represented as an intial 3-element position followed by a 6-element array of "other" positions. This is just because those are in the form that's easy to plot using the `polygon` layer type. But there might be better ways to do this.

This implementation is hacky and includes behaviour to accommodate examples I've come across, mainly because I don't have a robust definition of the format(s). It may be improved in future, especially if a reliable definition of the format can be identified.

Some examples of files that this reader is able to read are:

- DAMIT variant: example file
- SBN (Gaskell?) format: example file
- Comsim(?) variant: example file

Other resources:

- Stephane Erard's confluence page (see section "Small body shape models"): here
- MKDSK user guide here. This has a promising description of some other similar formats which a future evolution of this reader could be made to read.

Files in this format may contain multiple tables; depending on the context, either one or all tables will be read. Where only one table is required, either the first one in the file is used, or the required one can be specified after the "`#`" character at the end of the filename.

This format cannot be automatically identified by its content, so in general it is necessary to specify that a table is in ver format when reading it. However, if the input file has the extension "`.ver`" (case insensitive) an attempt will be made to read it using this format.

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STILTS - Starlink Tables Infrastructure Library Tool Set
Starlink User Note256
STILTS web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list: topcat-user@jiscmail.ac.uk