Hi Brian - actually STL does not really have the same problems as you can run into with other file formats because it has a really really basic structure. Triangles only, no colors, properties, grouping, render materials, or anything like that, just triangles and that is it.

Because it is so basic there does not tend to be any issues with applications reading it.

Other formats may require an application to do a lot more complex calculations to process the data, like triangulate a complex n-gon, or convert a trimmed NURBS surface into a polygon mesh - the more kinds of complex tasks that are involved that an application needs to do the more chance there is for there to be problems...

But typically because it is so basic STL tends to not be used for transferring data to a rendering program, only for transferring to a rapid prototyping machine for 3D model construction.

- Michael