The FME Evangelist

FME Evangelism Weekly Issue #12

Introduction

Today’s email is an ad-hoc info session on the FME2009 beta. Expect more follow ups in the near future.

Cheers,

Mark

Contents

1) First FME2009 Beta now Released!
2) New GUI Interface
3) Transformer Changes
4) Performance Issues
5) Cool Format Updates
6) Cool Functionality Updates
7) The Complete What’s Great

1) First FME2009 Beta now Released!

Yes. You heard it here first.
The first FME2009 beta build is going to be released in the next couple of hours, if not already.
Hence the need to brief you all on the changes you will find.

As usual you can obtain it from our web site downloads page, or directly from our ftp site.

As with any beta version, be aware that it is subject to change and the functionality might not be the final version.

We don’t really recommend using a beta for production work unless there’s a specific bug fix that you need (and since most of those have been ported to an updated 2008 build, there’s even less excuse).

2) New GUI Interface

The biggest thing that you’ll notice about this version of FME is a completely overhauled user interface for settings boxes.

You may have noticed a couple of these sneak into FME2008 (for example the ‘Add Published Parameter’ dialog), but now the entire bunch of settings dialogs have been overhauled to use this design.

The Bufferer transformer is a good example. The new dialog looks like this (below):

Notice that required fields are all highlighted in yellow, to show you where to fill in compulsory values, and that you are also prompted on which type of data to enter (eg “Floating Point Value”, “String or Attribute Name”, etc).

It’s not obvious from a static image, but these dialogs are also capable of being resized, which is something you couldn’t do with the old dialogs - for example (below):

This update applies to both transformer settings and reader/writer settings dialogs too.

From our point of view, the really nice thing about this upgrade is that we now have a whole lot more options for advanced GUI features (for example greying out one setting based on the value of another) which will eventually lead to a more logical interface. Another benefit is that these dialogs are compatible with Linux operating systems, bringing us one step closer to relealizing a full FME version for Linux.

3) Transformer Changes

If you are looking for the LineGeneralizer or AreaGeneralizer transformer, you’ll find that we’ve combined them into a single transformer called the Generalizer.

Likewise, if you are looking for the Rasterizer transformer, be aware that it’s been split up into the ImageRasterizer and NumericRasterizer.

4) Performance Issues

You need to be aware that our in-house test suite has identified a number of performance issues that are still being addressed.

a) Six of our tests required a reduced value for the “Max Features in Memory” setting before they would complete. That’s six tests out of several thousand, but it’s possible that you may need to adjust this setting to get an existing workspace to complete.

b) Performance (speed) suffered when we moved to a new programming environment. We know why and it’s being worked on, but for the time being some translations may run up to 50% slower.

c) We appear to take a performance hit when reading/writing networked datasets (ie files that are not on the local filesystem). Again, we’re looking into the causes and will fix it asap.

5) Cool Format Updates

There have been a number of cool updates to formats that are worth mentioning here in brief:

a) DGN Tag Writing

Here’s something you’ll not have seen before (below). A DGN destination feature type with attributes on it.

Workspaces writing to DGN will now generate an attribute schema, and the attributes will be written to tags.

Left: Tag writing is turned on/off using a setting in the navigation pane. Default is currently on.

b) MapInfo MDB/XLS Support

The MapInfo MITAB reader now supports MapInfo TAB datasets where attributes are stored in either an MDB or XLS spreadsheet.

c) Adobe PDF Updates
PDF output now permits control over background colour, page size and ambient/specular colours.

d) Database SQL Statements
Database formats that permit the concept now support multiple before/after SQL statements. A semicolon is used for the delimiter between statements.

e) BigTIFF Support
The GeoTIFF writer now supports the ability to write BigTIFF datasets.

f) Autocad DWG MPolygon support
The DWG reader now supports MPolygon entities.

6) Cool Functionality Updates

There have also been a number of cool updates to FME functionality that are worth mentioning here in brief:

a) Arc Stroking
The stroking of arcs (well actually any curve) can now be controlled by a new directive FME_STROKE_MAX_DEVIATION which defines the maximum distance between the arc and the stroked chord. This is exposed in the Workbench GUI and in various transformers. It’s key use is to control internal operations - for example when writing to a non arc-supporting format.

b) Raster Clipping
The Raster Clipper now supports non-rectangular clipping. This is way way way cool.

c) Raster Expression Evaluator
This new transformer lets you carry out algebra type functions on raster cells.

Dmitri has a great page full of examples.

7) The Complete What’s Great

Don’t forget that the full list of Great items can be found on fmepedia:

Also check out Dmitri’s fmepedia pages for lots of examples.

http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/Category:Dmitris_Raster_Studio

http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/Category:Dmitris_3D_Place

http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/Category:Web_Services

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This has been a general overview of what you can expect to find in the new FME2009 beta.

The evangelism email will look at all of these new functions and formats in closer detail in the near future.

Don’t forget to email us feedback and suggestions for any of this new functionality.

June 2nd, 2008

FME Evangelism Weekly Issue #2

1) StatisticsCalculator Transformer Group-By Option

New in FME this week is a group-by option for the StatisticsCalculator. This has been a big user request for a while now, and will let users calculate max, min, mean etc for groups of features, rather than an entire dataset.

There is a demo workspace for this which you can find on fmepedia at: http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/StatisticsCalculator_Example

It’s just a small demo to find average annual toothpaste expenditure for each postal code in the fictional city of Interopolis.

This is the sort of thing that a census related customer like US Census or UK ONS might find of interest, as well as marketing companies interested in toothpaste; but there are many other instances where it comes in useful for example helping to create feature IDs by finding the max current value, or counting the number of items in feature groups.

User group comments:

“That _is_ cool.”

“Wow, that’s good news for all who are used to SELECT <aggregate_func> FROM … GROUP BY … in SQL”

2) FME Licensing on Linux

For the longest time we didn’t allow the use of floating licenses with Linux (I understand that was for business rather than technical reasons).

However, as of Build 5136 for Linux, FME on Linux can now use a FlexLM license - it can connect to a license server on Windows, Linux, etc, and a license server can be installed on Linux as well.

As Dan Ise said on the user group, “many of you have asked about this in the past, and now it’s here.”

The setup procedure should be the same as for a UNIX license, and the FlexLM packages can be found at ftp://ftp.safe.com/fme/floatingLicense/

3) FME and Python

A number of new Python items this week, some of which you may know about but they’re worth re-iterating.

Misc Python Fixes:

Python paths not logged multiple times (PR#10801)

Fixed python path update (PR#13862 PR#9773)

Fixed population of FME_MacroValues global object (PR#13798)

New Support:

As of build 5142 we now support Python 2.5

New Tutorial:

As you probably saw, Oliver Heimann - a user from Germany, earned himself several gold stars by creating a superb Python Tutorial for FME.

You can find Oliver’s Python Corner on fmepedia at: http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/Oliver%27s_Python_Corner

It includes info on accessing attributes, using FME functions from within Python, startup and shutdown scripts plus much more.

NB: This is a great example of the sort of knowledge we’d like to be able to extract from our users - so if you are in touch with a customer doing cool stuff beg them to share their methods (on fmepedia or any other way)

4) Transit Ridership

On the subject of great user contributions, the user group had a new message this morning from Graeme Brown, a planning student from Halifax who acts as a consultant to Translink.

He has a great looking output of bus ridership in the Vancouver area - created using FME and the KML writer - that rivals Dmitri’s work in 3d displays.

The description of the workspace can be found on the user group at:

http://groups.google.com/group/fmetalk/browse_thread/thread/df6aec38810e7b15

If anyone in marketing or whatever wants to get in touch with Graeme his email address is: graeme.a.brown@gmail.com

User Group Comment: “That’s sweet… Are you going to be presenting this at the FME UC?”

5) Converting LIDAR to PDF

Having had to do this for a user I thought I’d share this example. The point is that the PDF writer is not only useful for 3d building models, a user can convert a point DEM to a TIN very easily, write it to PDF, and view it in 3D. If and when - as was talked about in yesterday’s lunch and learn - we can add textures to surfaces this would look even better!

6) CSGs

Speaking of the lunch-and-learn, if you didn’t see it you ought to know that we now (build 5137+) have a new factory and function that support CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) boolean operations between solids. Also, as of build 5141 these CSGs are now supported by the PDF writer and the Geodatabase writer.

For a diagram that highlights this much better than I can explain see the fount of all knowledge, wikipedia…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

FME User Group Comment:

“Ohhh. Does this mean that we can author Quake maps using FME?

I could see some real utility in being able to transform GIS data into online virtual worlds… :) ”

7) SQLExecutor Example

A new item on fmepedia this week is an SQLExecutor example workspace by Robyn.

It’s a good example of reading attribute data and attaching it to a set of existing spatial data - with the twist that it’s using the SQLExecutor rather than the Joiner - and how to use lists when the result of the query is more than a 1:1 relationship.

See: http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/SQLExecutor_Example

8) Free FME FDO

A final item this week is more for support type dudes - the marketing folk know all about this, but I know some folk at this end of the office missed out on the announcement.

On November 27th Safe announced the release of a free FME FDO Provider for AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 which includes 9 formats.

The product was apparently demo’d at the Autodesk University in Las Vegas, and is available for download from http://www.safe.com/fmefdo

For more info I imagine Jaylene or Fil could help, or see the story at:

http://www.safe.com/company/news/2007/108/index.htm

Have feedback?

Email FME Evangelist, Mark Ireland at mark.ireland@safe.com.

December 7th, 2007