Of course, the ongoing problem with generic scanner data is that you must transform data from the sensor into some sort of format that can be presented on a digital display or printed. Often times the most useful transformation form is to make a duplicate of the object that is as close to the original as possible. In the case of sensor data that is meant for this target, the solution to the problem of presenting the data is rather simple. Just run through the process of making it into a duplicate of the real object.
So really, what separates versions of the same file format from different file formats? When you think about it, the main thing that separates here is the existence of forwards and backwards compatibility.