Why is it necessary to purchase Presagis products in order to obtain and use the CDB API? Equivalent open formats, such as SEDRIS and Collada, provide free APIs which seems appropriate for open standards and helps encourage take-up and wider usage by the community. Thanks.

There are three main reasons for not offering a free version of the CDB API:

1) We promote the CDB as an open specification that makes it easy to read/write from since it implements a simple directory and file hierarchy using the most common data formats in our industry. As such, the API is less critical and, in fact, all early adopters developed their own interface to the CDB using software they already had.

2) The CDB is designed as a run-time format to support real-time applications like FAA certified flight simulators and military full mission trainers. While the CDB data structures are in place to support deterministic data access and loading (direct file access and a priori knowledge of data size), the interface to the CDB and the client application are left to the user so they can be optimized for their particular need. It would be impossible to create an API that could meet this level of performance for all foreseeable applications and providing a free API would give the impression that this was the preferred or recommended method for interfacing with the CDB.

3) Customers who rely on the Presagis API for their project critical needs also rely on Presagis support to provide help when needed. By bundling the API with the products, that support is assured.