I'm making use of DevDept's Eyeshot library to manage 3D graphics files which contain geometries that represent the parts of a metalcasting mold. Largely these are either basic Brep primitives or STL-file type imports, combined into one scene.
Each geometry is associated with thermal properties for use in the simulator. If I use STEP as an export format, I'd like to include the thermal properties as metadata, either as a separate custom entity with an index, either a number or string key, or the properties themselves.
In either case, the thermal properties are easy to express as a multiline JSON string.
Is it possible to include descriptive metadata like this in a STEP file? What would be a good approach to accomplish this?
general "STEP" is not a format, it is a set of standards. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303
That means that you need to know which "AP" you are to use (depending). You then usually find some "recommended practices" or "usage guide" done by association like PDES, Inc. and ProSTEP iViP, that explains how you can (and should) implement these standards.