Alembic
http://www.alembic.io/index.html I've recently heard of an open framework that allows storage of surface and points description such as geometry and particles to be described in a cache in one application and handed over to be processed in another application, thus making the surface independent of application and yet consistent across different software platforms. Follow the link above to take a look at what it is, and what it is not. The framework is jointly developed by Sony Imageworks, and Lucasfilm. At this moment you can only download the source, and need to build the executable in order to run it. (I have absolutely no idea how to do this, even if I follow the attached instructions).