What's Up Wednesday (25th September 2024): Data Interoperability Explained, Python IDEs, Smart Cities, Waiting for FME, and LOTS of events.

Hello FME friends,

It seems like September must be FME Blogging Month. That's the only way to explain a sudden explosion of blog posts recently.

As a community person, I'm very happy to see so much FME-related content being created outside of Safe, and I've listed below my favourite posts of the past few days.

There are lots of FME-related events to talk about too, not least the Breakfast of Champions events coming up in Dallas (October 18th) and San Francisco (November 18th).

Finally, does an FME translation slow down while you are watching it? It seems so. So try out a Python method for popping up alert messages on your Windows PC.

Blog Roundup

Esri, Data Interoperability, and FME

I'll start with Bruce Harold at Esri, who is a very prolific blogger, and always has something interesting to discuss. First, we have his take on "How does Data Interoperability relate to FME?"

As you know, Esri's Data Interoperability is built using FME technology. That means the two products are very similar in their look and feel, and most of your favourite formats and transformers exist in both products.

There is, naturally, a lot of interoperability between the two products as well. Read Bruce's blog to see how well workspaces can be shared between them, and check out our own knowledgebase to see how to integrate FME Flow with ArcGIS Server.

In short, Data Interoperability is great if you want to use FME tools, but directly within the Esri environment - plus Bruce has a lot of great tips, such as in this second blog: ETL Pattern: Avoid Serializing Bulk I/O

This is an interesting technique about how to keep an ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise feature layer up to date with an external data source.

Bruce explains that edit transactions are an expensive operation, particularly if you have thousands (or millions) of features. If I understand correctly, his suggestion is to do an automatic export of the hosted data, and do change detection locally.

Wait! Won't you need a token to access your ArcGIS Online? Yes, you will, and Bruce has thoughtfully created the EsriOnlineTokenGetter transformer to help you (or the EsriPortalTokenGetter, if using a Portal service).

Wow! Fantastic work, Bruce. Even for non-Data Interoperability users, I think there are still useful things to learn in your work.

FME Python in Visual Studio Code

Down in New Zealand, Hamish Kingsbury writes a blog post for Locus, on the topic of writing Python code for FME most efficiently.

We all know that the FME IDE for Python is... how can I say this... not particularly mature. In fact, the most-voted idea on the community is titled "Better IDE for Python".

So Hamish investigated how to integrate FME with the Visual Studio Code IDE. Click the link to find out how he did it (or read our knowledgebase if PyCharm is your preferred IDE).

I hope that we'll upgrade the IDE inside FME at some point but - until then - these methods are a good way to improve your debugging functionality. Of course, don't forget that FME now has an AI Assist tool in the PythonCaller transformer to help you with your coding:

Smooth Flows of Data and Water!

In Belgium, GIM has a blog post about FME's role in the asset management infrastructure at Pidpa, in the province of Antwerp.

As at most large organizations, there are a range of different tools (here, ArcGIS Enterprise, GeoCortex, and SQL Server) wanting to exchange data between themselves and with external data sources.

Pidpa seems to have embraced FME fully, including using it for photo processing, automated data imports/exports, and generating emails for reporting.

Click the link above to find out more.

Smart Cities and BIM Data

This one is more of an academic paper than a blog, so it's very thorough in its examination of the process of creating a 3D web presentation of BIM, CAD, and other 3D models.

It comes from the Engineering Faculty of Necmettin Erbakan University, in Turkey.

As they found out, integrating data for 3D visualization is a multi-step process:

Luckily, some of those steps involved FME, converting data from IFC to CityGML, and then from CityGML to 3DTiles for use in Cesium. They also mention using FME to read directly from Revit.

They make an interesting point about the ability to include semantic data in a translation, and how improvements are needed, though they reference an article from 2018 and I don't know enough about this data to know if this is still true.

Regardless, I think this is a great look at the practicalities of integrating 3D data, and you can even check out the output on their website.

Talking about Turkey, there's a new transformer on the FME Hub called the TurkishNationalTopographicGridSystem. According to the description, it "generates national topographic map sheets for Turkey based on a given point or area. It uses the official Turkish national grid system to identify and create map sheets corresponding to the input location."

You can give the author feedback here.

Emergency Services and Data Integration

If you subscribe to FME blog alerts on the FME Community, you'll know that a new article was posted this week titled "7 Ways Emergency Services Can Improve Operations using Data Integration".

You might think that it's mostly about improving the accuracy of address data, and that is certainly a topic that could provide several articles worth of material. But, there are also some ideas that you might not have considered.

For example:

• Automated public notifications for hazards and emergencies.
• Optimized travel routes for emergency vehicles.
• Real-time updates to situational awareness.

So, read the article to learn more about these suggestions - and others - and how they have already been implemented in various projects around the world.

Community Updates

The issue with downloads has now been fixed! Yippee!

The current question of the week is:

"What do you want to learn about at the Peak of Data Integration?"

Let us know what you're hoping to see and learn, plus anything you can think of for a community activity (we're just trying to come up with some ideas right now).

On the topic of the Peak of Data Integration conference, I just submitted a conference presentation on the subject of integrating Flow Apps and Automations for non-web developers.

But we want to hear your stories too! The call for presentations will not be open for much longer, and spots are filling up. Not only do you get to share your skills with other FME users, you also get a special speaker rate for the conference, plus special speaker swag.

So think of a good topic, and submit it through the link above.

Weekly Quiz

This week's quiz is a category quiz (yes, the one where you type the answers). Previously we did the 50 different countries of Europe; now can you remember the 50 different states of the USA?

In the sitcom, Friends, the challenge was to get all 50 states in 6 minutes. I'm being more generous and giving you 20 minutes, so it should be simple, right?

Let us know in the comments your final score!

Breakfast of Champions

As you'll remember from last week, we're starting a series of user meetups in various cities. The first of those events is coming up in Dallas (October 18th), and we're pleased to announce a second event, to be held in San Francisco on November 18th.

These events are for networking and learning about FME, and spaces are limited to sign up now!

Partner Events

Besides our Breakfast of Champions, there are various partner events going on around the world. For example, last week in Cardiff (UK) the 1Spatial World Tour landed in town.

In Ireland, DataBuilders recently held their Data Intelligence event, with special guest, Don Murray (Don will also be at the Breakfast event in Dallas, so his air miles balance must be looking pretty healthy!)

As for upcoming events, con terra (Espa?a) will be at the Esri Espa?a conference, and looking forward to talking with everyone about FME and Esri.

While con terra (Germany) are currently at Intergeo and hoping to talk to you about Digital Twins built using FME and ArcGIS.

It's just one week until the Tensing FME Tour in Leeds (UK), where one talk will be about The 'Shape' of the Future! Sign up now and spend the time in between browsing their amusing AI-generated Shapefile memes!

Similarly, in about a week's time, Miso is hosting their Knowledge Sharing Hub in Stockport (UK) where they will be talking about (among other things), Automating local land charge updates and streamlining processes.

I wish I could be there. I implemented a couple of LLC systems way back in the 90s, and I'd love to see how things have changed since then.

Waiting for FME

FME Flow is custom-built for automating processes and sending out alerts and notifications. But what if you want to be notified when a workspace has finished running on FME Form?

Well, under Tools > FME Options > Appearance, you can get Windows to play a sound when a translation is complete:

However, it would be better to get a simple Windows pop-up window, as with other tools that issue notifications.

With that in mind, Hugo Ahlenius has come up with a way to issue pop-up messages using a Python script:

If you like the idea, and would like to see it implemented officially in FME, then go and upvote the idea on the FME Community. I've upvoted it! I think it's a great idea.

As some of the other comments have noted, you can do something similar using a SystemCaller transformer, but it's not a proper "toast" pop-up window, in the same way as Hugo created with Python.

Miscellaneous News

Veremes (France) has updated their cadastral data tool, "Majic", for FME 2024.

The FME live training calendar has now been updated until the end of the year.

1Spatial has an on-demand webinar available about Transformers on the Fringe: The Unsung Heroes of FME.

Tip of the day: I think you'll know this already, but there are better ways to manage spatial data than writing it in a notebook and then manually typing it into Excel. Having said that, I'm sure every GIS professional is grateful for GIS not to have been involved in this disaster.