It's because it's the ASCII version of the STL format. (horror!) A binary STL would be about quarter to half the size. And there are other open formats that wou

It's because it's the ASCII version of the STL format. (horror!) A binary STL would be about quarter to half the size. And there are other open formats that would be smaller and perform better than STL. The reason why I didn't futz around with it too much is that I'm still working out whether HNers and 3D modelers would find it useful to version control 3d printable models. I could spend a long time optimizing transfer times of models, but it'd be a pity if no one wanted to use it in the first place.