I've recently found myself using anim8or's stl ascii export feature to make simple geometries that can be parsed with relative ease in my own code, but there's something odd about the files that animator generates. While they work great, I've noticed that it has 9 vertices per loop defining each triangle (with the last 6 being duplicates of the first 3). While it has no influence on the functionality (apart from an increase in file size), I was curious as to why this might be the case. Below is a snippet from a cube made in anim8or and exported as an ascii stl file.
solid object01
facet normal 0 1 0
outer loop
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 -20.3473
endloop
endfacet
facet normal 0 1 0
outer loop
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex -27.401 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex -27.401 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
vertex -27.401 20.1845 -20.3473
vertex -27.401 20.1845 14.3787
vertex 12.968 20.1845 14.3787
endloop
endfacet
