Hi all,
To my knowledge there is no good format for storing volume data which is supported by a variety of applications and voxel game engines. If we had such a format then it would make it much easier to build a content pipeline, and would also encourage the sharing of volume data through online archives.
So, I have spent some time defining such a format and will put some effort into promoting it to the relevant parties. This is not supposed to replace your application's own format but just to provide an alternative import/export option. In this sense you can see it as being conceptually similar to COLLADA for mesh data.
The main driving force behind the format is that it is extremely simple, and people should be able to understand it without reading the specification. It makes use of images slices, so you can view the whole volume in Windows Explorer and edit it with Paint/Gimp/PhotoShop if needed.
So, I would very much appreciate feedback to ensure it meets people needs and to establish which parts of the specification are not clear. You can see the document here:
You should be able to comment directly on the document or you can just leave feedback here. I've also prepared a couple of example volumes as this shows just how nice it is to view/edit the data with standard tools:
Thanks for taking the time to read!