IN THIS ISSUECity of Ottawa Creates TimeNew FeatureReader TransformerTaming LiDAR Data’s Size by TilingFME Loves XML and So Can You! Productivity of Batch ProcessingIowa DOT Improves Data AccessUser Spotlight: Stephen PerkinsSupport Q&A at Your Fingertips New Tutorials on Focused TopicsRecap of FME 2011 World TourEmployee Spotlight: Dmitri Bagh

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Founders' Perspective

Creating More Time with FMELife is full of surprises, and so is your data! Just when you think you have everything under control there’s a new data challenge promising to take up even more of your time.

That’s why this issue is focused on sharing ideas and examples on how FME® can help you save valuable time.

Inside, you’ll read how the City of Ottawa used FME to turn a regular 2-3 week data conversion task into an automated job which now runs overnight and is ready by morning. You’ll also fi nd out how the

“FME can help you save valuable time.”

Iowa Department of Transportation applied FME to a complex data challenge which now takes half the time.

On the recent FME 2011 World Tour we were amazed by the many diff erent uses our

customers have for FME. To give you fresh ideas, we’ve included articles on a range of FME capabilities: Learn how to tile LiDAR data, or discover how easy it is to work with XML data. There’s also an article which explains how using FME Server lets you maximize the productivity of batch processing.

As always, we love hearing from you. If you’re struggling with a nasty data challenge that’s occupying most of your day – let us know! Tell us about your data problems and send your ideas to feedback@safe.com. Your suggestion could lead to the development of a new, time-saving FME feature.

FME 2011 World TourThis spring over 1,500 FME enthusiasts

participated in a series of user meetings around

the world. Read a quick recap of the tour on page

7, and fi nd out how you can watch a full-day

video of the Vancouver event.

Follow Dale on Twitter @DaleAtSafe

Follow Don on Twitter @DonAtSafe

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So much data, so little time! City of Ottawa uses FME to create time.

An ariel view of Rideau Canal and Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario.

to automate the monthly conversion processes and data validation tasks, saving the City’s Surveying and Mapping team a pile of time.

“Data processing is no longer a chore for us,” says Stephen. “And with the drag and drop feature, we save so much time creating the workspaces we frequently access, we’ve been wondering: Can it really be that simple?!”

Stephen now completes both the data conversions and the now-automated quality checks in only a few hours. “It used to take us 2 – 3 weeks to complete these updates. Now, I set the script to run at the end of the day and when I come back in the morning, it’s done and the data is ready for us to use.”

Running these automated updates means that his team spends less time converting and disseminating data and more time working on other important projects. For example, every few years his team needs to convert very large raster datasets of ortho-rectified imagery of the UNESCO World Heritage Rideau Canal site. Usually, the imagery is just within the City of Ottawa, but this year the project included the entire 200km length of the canal. Using FME, they were able to quickly perform a coordinate system conversion and tiling and resolution adjustment with over 15,000 images at 20cm resolution. These images are then used by UNESCO to monitor ongoing maintenance of the site and to ensure that the Rideau Canal meets the World Heritage designation.

Time saved on converting data, means more time for the City’s Surveys and Mapping team to enjoy the beauty of the Rideau Canal, including ice-skating on this world-famous site during the winter.

Learn how to easily convert raster datasets in an upcoming webinar: www.safe.com/rasterwebinar

Increasing Flexibility: New FeatureReader TransformerThe new (in FME 2011) FeatureReader transformer improves your ability to define the data you want to use in your workspace, and can make your transformations run faster. How?

Well, when you only intend to work on a portion of a dataset, then it’s more efficient to read only that subset, rather than all the data. The FeatureReader transformer achieves this by querying a source dataset and returning only the results. The query can be defined by specific layers, a geographic relationship, or even a “where” clause.

With it you might query a dataset for features that fall on a

particular layer and within a given polygon; but what’s really great is that you can use transformers to define the query parameters before you read any data into the workflow.

For example, the polygon of interest could be defined by an existing feature in your workspace, or the layers defined by the contents of a text file. The possibilities are endless. And can you imagine how much faster a transformation process will run when it’s only reading the data you need?

Let’s take a look at a few ways this new FeatureReader transformer could be used.

Every month The City of Ottawa’s Surveys and Mapping Department has a daunting vector conversion project to tackle: converting over 250,000 property parcels and updating all the property lines. Essentially each property parcel contains numerous lines and it is these lines, not the parcels, which are updated with new information. This data then needs to be made available to a variety of individuals, ranging from city planners to financial analysts.

Stephen Perkins, Senior Project Photogrammetrist, used to spend weeks performing these vector conversions and then still needed to do quality control to ensure the data had been transformed correctly.

While looking for a way to make this process quicker and more efficient, Stephen discovered FME. Using FME, Stephen was able

Continued on next page

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Taming LiDAR Data’s Size by TilingThe massive size of LiDAR datasets often makes this highly accurate data diffi cult to work with. So how can you tame it for use?

There are a variety of ways that FME can help you reduce your LiDAR data's volume. For example, you can thin the data, extract the precise subset you require, or tile the data into manageable pieces. In this particular article, we’ll take a look at how easy it is to tile your LiDAR dataset.

To start, you simply read the LiDAR dataset you want to tile into your workspace using the corresponding reader. If you’re reading multiple fi les, you can use a PointCloudCombiner transformer to bring all of your source data into a single point cloud dataset.

This simple workspace uses a pre-defi ned grid to tile a point cloud dataset.

Illustration of the pre-defi ned grid as it is overlaid on the point cloud dataset it is being used to clip.

Say you want to extract a particular tile of source data from a spatial database. Now you can use the FeatureReader to extract this information around an existing grid feature, and keep the clip operation on the database server where it belongs.

And in an FME Server powered data distribution service, users can now defi ne the area of interest as a polygon – rather than a rectangular envelope – and get their data quicker because FME no longer needs to do an expensive clip operation.

Such techniques run a transformation process more quickly because there is less data to process. Check out a step-by-

Next, use the Tiler transformer to chop the point cloud data into portions. Set what you want the portions to be (e.g. 1,000 x 1,000 units) and then take the row and column IDs that the Tiler assigned to each tile, and combine them using the StringFormatter and StringConcatenator transformers into a unique ID for each tile. Then you can use a writer, such as the LAS writer, to fan out the created tiles by this unique attribute.

If the exact tile location is important, you can use a predefi ned grid rather than the Tiler transformer. In this case you read tiles into your workspace that you’d like to use as clippers (for example, shapefi le tiles) and use the Clipper transformer to slice up

the point cloud dataset accordingly. Then bring the disparate data for each output tile together using the PointCloudCombiner transfomer to assemble all parts that fall within a given tile into a single geometry, grouping by tile ID.

There are many more ways to tame your LiDAR datasets’ size with FME. Check out the practical examples in Dmitri’s Point Cloud Lab at www.safe.com/pointcloudlab

step explanation of this example with screenshots in the FME Evangelist blog: visit www.safe.com/featurereader

Another way the FeatureReader transformer can be used is to read the output of another transformation task into a workspace, as part of a managed batch process. To fi nd out more, read the article starting on page 4.

Tell us how you’re using the FeatureReader transformer! Tweet your use cases to @SafeSoftware

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Continued on next page

FME Loves XML and So Can You!

Some great transformers built right into FME Server can help you maximize the productivity of your batch processing. By making it easy to automate running a set of transformation jobs in sequence, these transformers give you more flexibility to prepare your data exactly how it’s needed.

Using FME Server you can run a “control” workspace that queues up other transformation workflows to be performed on the server, either concurrently or in a specific sequence.

When the jobs complete, you can have FME automatically push the output data wherever you want it – either as its own output (like normal) or as input data for another transformation job.

So instead of manually running a group of transformation jobs one after the

Maximize the Productivity of Batch Processing

You don’t have to fear XML anymore. FME makes it simple to work with XML data – whether you want to import or export it – without requiring you to be an XML Guru.

Even if you’re new to XML (such as OGC® GML and CityGML, OS MasterMap®, Geobase, etc.), FME makes it easy to pull information out of your XML file and get it into the system of your choice.

And FME does this without requiring you to learn XML tools like XQuery or XSLT. Instead, FME provides pre-defined transformers to help you easily whip your XML into shape. Let’s take a look at a few of these transformers:

XMLTemplater – give FME a sample of the XML structure you want to match, and FME will take your input data and output it as XML in the same file structure. Ta-da!

XMLValidator – use this transformer to check if the syntax of the XML you’re writing is valid, or to validate that the XML you’re writing

other, FME Server enables you to queue up multiple transformation workflows to run in logical stages without human intervention.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

The simplest involves a control workspace that queues up multiple transformation jobs to run. These jobs can be set to run in parallel on any available FME engines, or they can be set to wait for a previous transformation to be complete before they begin. This allows a step-by-step approach to data transformation without requiring a person sitting behind a screen to commence each stage.

How would you do this? Well it’s actually quite simple. Your control workspace uses an FMEServerJobSubmitter transformer to queue up the transformation jobs to run. These

transformation jobs are simply other workspaces.

To tell the next set of transformation jobs to wait for the previous jobs to complete successfully, you use the FMEServerJobWaiter transformer. Place it in your control workspace and the second set of jobs will wait patiently for the results of the first set to be in before they run. Use it again to have a third set of jobs wait for the second set to complete successfully, and so on.

Now let’s look at another example.

Instead of just queuing up the next set of transformation jobs to run, you can use the output of previous transformation jobs as input for the next set of transformation jobs. To do this, you simply use a transformer such as the

meets specific schema requirements by checking it against an .xsd document.

XMLFormatter – make your XML pretty to the eye for easier reading.

Soon you’ll go looking for XML rather than trying to find ways to avoid it.

Loads of customers are now using FME to tackle their XML data challenges including: Ordnance Survey, City of Vancouver, Canada’s

The Weather Network, and many who are working on the INSPIRE initiative such as the Swedish EPA.

Join the movement! Take our XML Challenge: Send us your XML problem and let us show you how easy it can be to work with XML.

Visit: www.safe.com/ilovexml to submit your data and challenge. The first 50 people will get a hot new I XML t-shirt.

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With internal and external stakeholders working in a variety of applications (Esri® ArcGIS®, Intergraph® GeoMedia®, and Bentley® Microstation®), it can be difficult to gain a unified view of data assets. For this reason, the Iowa Department of Transportation has always stressed the importance of interoperability to allow people to easily use and share data.

For many years, Shawn Blaesing-Thompson, Office of Maintenance GIS Coordinator at the DOT, has been using FME to help achieve this objective. Among her responsibilities, Shawn manages data and coordinates areas of responsibility for 109 maintenance garages across the state. In order for maintenance personnel to both plan and report their work, the road segments within these areas need to be accurate.

Iowa DOT Improves Data Access with FME

A mockup of Iowa DOT's new Highway Division Portal, currently under development.

FeatureReader to bring the output back into the control workspace.

(Never heard of the FeatureReader transformer? Learn more about it in the article starting on page 2.)

In both of these examples, you gain the increased productivity of the next generation of batch processing. Plus, you gain the advantages of FME Server’s enterprise-ready features to ensure that your transformation project goes smoothly: job scaling over multiple engines and machines, job queuing, job reporting, fault tolerance, failover protection, and more.

Learn more tips and tricks for using FME Server in the tutorial. Visit: www.safe.com/fmeservertutorial

Periodically, these road segments change and the system needs to be updated. This updating process previously took up to 5 hours to complete as it required numerous steps to query, export, and process data from their ArcGIS and GeoMedia systems, before finally loading the data back into their Oracle® database.

enable more informed decision making by providing stakeholders with easy access to environmental and business data along over 500 miles of the I-80 highway corridor. A key requirement for the Iowa DOT was allowing its users to continue working in their familiar applications, while at the same time not compromising on data quality or workflow efficiency.

To accomplish this feat, the team turned to FME Server to power the portal’s data upload and data distribution capabilities. With FME Server running behind-the-scenes, users can easily upload data in a variety of formats. Once the data is in the portal, other users are able to view the data and download it in their preferred format.

Due to the success of the I-80 GIS Database and Portal, the team is now hard at work on an expanded statewide Highway Division Portal. To reduce maintenance efforts, this new portal will use FME’s dynamic schema capability to reduce the number of workspaces required. As well, the Generic Writer will be employed to increase the number of available formats. Finally, the team is exploring ways to use FME’s LiDAR data capabilities to make its statewide LiDAR dataset of 37,000 LAS tiles more easily accessible via the portal.

To learn more about what FME Server can do, visit: www.safe.com/fmeserverexamples

“The ability to keep the data in its native

format has been extremely valuable to

us. Not only has it helped us improve

our data quality, but it’s also allowed us

to perform more sophisticated analysis.- Shawn Blaesing-Thompson, Iowa Department of Transportation

Shawn used FME Desktop to simplify the process and as a result, save hours of time. From start to finish, the process is now completed in half the time. “The ability to keep the data in its native format has been extremely valuable to us” says Shawn. “Not only has it helped us improve our data quality, but it’s also allowed us to perform more sophisticated analysis.”

The DOT began working with HNTB Corporation in 2009 on an ambitious project known as the I-80 GIS Database and Portal. The portal was designed to

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New: FME Tutorials on Focused TopicsTo help you build your FME expertise, we’ve just released two new tutorials. These tutorials are a great way to gain more in-depth knowledge and skills on a specific topic.

Both tutorials include hands-on exercises and helpful instructions to ensure an easy learning experience.

New FME Tutorials � Spatial Database Tutorial

Streamline your workflows. Learn how to read, write,

and update data to/from your spatial database.

� Raster Tutorial

Become the Master of Raster. Learn about raster

format translation, transformation, data inspection,

and more.

Get Started! Download the tutorials: www.safe.com/tutorials

FME User Spotlight: Steven Perkins, City of Ottawa, Senior Project Photogrammetrist, FME User for 6 monthsWhat is your role at the City of Ottawa? Predominantly I perform GIS analysis to present complex ideas with maps. Since discovering FME, I can now spend more time on analyzing the data and less time converting it.

What do you like best about your role? I get to interact with many different client groups on a variety of projects so not one day is the same.

What is your most interesting project? Helping the police to investigate such things as crimes or missing persons has been the most fulfilling because I feel that I’m helping those who cannot necessarily help themselves.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time? I’m a family man, first and foremost but I do like to run. My daughter is old enough now to run with me and keep up... Truthfully, she’s the one who encourages me not to slow down.

Please share something unique about yourself. My claim to fame is that my wife and I had twin boys on my daughter’s second birthday, so all 3 children share the same birthday. This is an excellent example of my project management skills in action.

Support Q&A at Your FingertipsLooking for a quick answer on a technical question, such as whether to use 64-bit or 32-bit FME 2010 on 64-bit Windows? Or, do you have an installer problem, but no log file was created? Look no further than the new FME Solutions Center to get instant answers to commonly asked technical support enquiries.

In the FME Solutions Center, we’ve shared detailed solutions to questions submitted by other users. Each solution contains a general overview of the problem as well as a suggested solution. To locate relevant solutions, you can either browse through the categorized solutions or perform a keyword search.

Limit your downtime. The next time you have a technical question, check out the FME Solutions Center to find instant answers.

Browse available solutions: www.safe.com/solutionscenter

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Partner Meeting & Awards

On March 3rd, partners from around the world

met in Vancouver at the Safe-hosted Sales Partner

Meeting. Together we discussed successful

approaches for providing great customer service,

identifi ed ways to improve our partner program,

and discussed future plans for FME.

con terra GmbH was presented with the Top

Sales Partner of 2010 Award. Honorable mention

goes to Lagen Spatial which has grown to our

highest tier, Platinum. Congratulations to both

organizations!

To find nearby FME sales and technical

expertise, use our Sales Partner locator:

www.safe.com/salespartnerlocator

Videos from the World Tour

You can watch the full-day video recording of the

Vancouver stop of the FME 2011 World Tour. View

presentations from Safe Software, BC Transit, Forte

Consulting, and the City of Vancouver.

Presentations from Safe Software:

� Revealing Your New Sidekick: FME 2011

� New Superpowers for FME Server

� Favorite Gadgets from the Superhero

Armoury

� Top Interoperability Villains:

- CAD to GIS / GIS to CAD

- Tools for Rasterman

- The Power of Data in the Cloud

- XML Made Easy

- FME and Database Loading

Watch videos from the World Tour at

www.safe.com/fmewt

Recap of FME 2011 World Tour Spanning 5 continents, 12 countries and 28 cities – this spring’s FME 2011 World Tour was truly a global event. With the help of our partners, over 1,500 FME users gathered all over the world to exchange ideas and share how they’re using FME.

� “I have more data than time” – We

heard this challenge many times. With

the explosive growth in data, users

are fi nding that FME is a great tool for

enabling them to do more things with

more data in less time.

� “You mean FME can do that too?!”

– Some people only use FME for a

few tasks, and are unaware of its full

capabilities. Did you know that FME is a

powerful tool for working with LiDAR, 3D,

Raster and XML data?

� “What’s FME Server?” – Some attendees

had not heard of FME Server before

coming to the event. If you

haven’t yet discovered what

FME Server can do in enabling

effi cient data transformation and

distribution, be sure to check out

the video of our FME Server

presentation from our

FME user meeting in

Vancouver, Canada:

www.safe.com/fmeserver-wt

The Safe team heads out on the road for the FME 2011 World Tour.

Perhaps the most unusual venue, the Belgium user meeting was held at a meeting hall in the Antwerp Zoo!

The World Tour agenda showcased the latest and greatest in FME 2011. Attendees took in presentations from Safe, our partners, and fellow users on interesting FME uses; discovered tips and tricks and best practices; as well as enjoyed networking opportunities and a whole lot of fun.

Themes from the RoadEach year we’re surprised and impressed with the wide range of ways our customers are using FME. From “FME and Utilities – A Tool for Every Trade” by Jeff DeWitt and Ron Crenshaw of Georgia Power Company in the USA, to “Using FME to Support Nottingham City Council’s Street Lighting PFI [Private Finance Initiative]” by Sarah Nurnham and Hishiv Shah in the UK – there was no shortage of interesting FME stories. View the slides from some of these presentations at www.safe.com/worldtourproceedings

Throughout the tour, we were intrigued by the interesting applications of FME and the many discussions we had with our customers. Here are just a few of our findings:

Another reason why we love meeting with our users is that it gives us the opportunity to hear your great ideas and suggestions. Thanks to feedback from FME users, we successfully resolved 592 unique customer requests for FME 2011. This year, we hope to surpass that number. We want to keep hearing from you. Please send all feedback and suggestions to feedback@safe.com.

Join us at an upcoming FME event, visit: www.safe.com/events

FME is a registered trademark of Safe Software Inc. All other product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Printed in Canada.

Web: www.safe.comEmail: info@safe.com

Suite 2017, 7445 - 132nd StreetSurrey, British Columbia Canada

Tel: 604-501-9985Fax: 604-501-9965

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About FMEThe FME technology platform makes it possible to

transform spatial data to use and share. It solves

more spatial data transformation challenges across

more formats than any other solution, making it

easier for professionals to solve data interoperability

headaches and help their organizations meet their

business goals and required standards.

Today, FME is the dominant technology for spatial

data transformation. It powers our FME Desktop

and Server software and the solutions of more

leading spatial data application vendors than any

other technology. It's used by tens of thousands

of customers worldwide across a wide range of

industries. FME is made by the experts at Safe

Software. Learn more about achieving total spatial

data mastery at www.safe.com

Cool FME Webinars For a Hot Summer!This summer we are hosting lots of free webinars to help you build your FME expertise. New to FME? These webinars will also help you discover how to overcome your data interoperability challenges.

With topics that include Esri, Raster, Intergraph, INSPIRE, KML and Oracle Spatial there is bound to be something to help you solve your spatial data puzzles. Plus since every webinar is recorded, you can also watch videos from previous webinars on topics like CAD / GIS data exchange or preparing LiDAR data.

During each webinar you will see FME in action as we walk through common transformation scenarios and explain best practices. Attending a webinar is also a great opportunity to ask experts questions about your unique data access challenges and to see how your peers are using FME.

View all upcoming and on-demand webinars, or register today: www.safe.com/webinars

Dmitri Bagh, FME Scenario Creation and Testing AnalystJoined Safe Software in January 2005What is your role here at Safe?I probably have the best job: the freedom to test and play around with new enhancements and updates to FME before they become available to the public. It’s like playing a video game, but better!

How did this “test and play” work for defi ning LiDAR capabilities in FME 2011? After gathering input from users, I mocked up workspaces that refl ected common scenarios. I then worked closely with our development team to create solutions that addressed these scenarios and the needs of our users to allow them to use FME with their LiDAR data.

Do you have any hobbies?I’m an avid photographer and recently learnt to play the piano – I love playing jazz and bossa nova.

Photography and travel go well together – do you enjoy traveling too?Yes, very much. Recently my family and I toured Chile where I took some amazing photos, including shots in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.

Connect with Us OnlineRead our Blogs

� It’s All About Data: Read our views on

the world of spatial data - blog.safe.com

� The FME Evangelist: Discover tips and

new FME features - evangelism.safe.com

Follow us on

� @SafeSoftware: Read FME news and

learn what we’re up to

� @FMEDoctors: Discuss your technical

matters with FME experts

� @FMEEvangelist: Find out about cool

features in FME and get helpful tips

� @FMEBetaBuilder: Receive automated

updates on new FME betas