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One measure of streaming media's potential is the fact that some traditional, extremely conservative companies such as British Petroleum, John Deere and Black and Veatch are beginning to consider what the technology might do for them.

This increasing broadmindedness is related to emerging standards for the creation and exchange of traditional meat-and-potatoes industrial information.

The International Standards Organization is working on a series of standards in five areas of product data technology. One, the Standard for The Exchange of Product model data, comprises AP221 for functional data and schematics, AP227 for plant spatial configuration and AP231 for process engineering AP227 addresses the sort of streaming three-dimensional CAD imagery that companies such as Black and Veatch intend to pursue. The standard should be complete and commercial implementations underway by the second half of 1998.

A user group called PieBase also is involved in these efforts. Representing the interests of companies that build and own large industrial process plants, PieBase is focused on wresting control of these data standards from the "techno-weenies,'' in the words of John Voeller, chief technology officer at Black and Veatch, a power plant builder in Kansas City, Mo.

"We want to make sure these solutions are business-based, not just technology-minded,'' Voeller says.

For more information on these initiatives, check out www.nist.gov/sc4, http://cic.nist.gov and http://cic.nist.gov.

- Michael Csenger