Form Basics - Exercise 1

Exercise Details	Opening and Running a Workspace
Locality	Melbourne, Australia
Data	Bicycle Network (GeoJSON) Property Boundaries (Esri Shapefile)
Overall Goal	To open and run an FME workspace to explore what it can do with data
Demonstrates	Opening and running a workspace
Start Workspace	C:\FMETraining\Workspaces\FormBasics-Ex1-Begin.fmw
End Workspace	None

Rather than trying to explain what FME is and does, let us try it for ourselves! In this exercise, you will explore a workflow to integrate and transform data to create a Google KML file that provides a bicycle route that can be taken to visit the main parks in Melbourne, Australia. This workflow works with spatial and attribute data.

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1

Locate Workspace File

When translations and transformations are defined in FME, they can be saved in a .fmw file.

Using a file explorer, browse to C:\FMETraining\Workspaces\FormBasics-Ex1-Begin.fmw.

Double-click on the file. It will open an application called FME Workbench.

2

Explore FME Workspace

When FME Workbench opens you will see the option of viewing the Workbench Essentials tutorial. You can complete this now if you wish, or view it later under Help > Workbench Essentials. For now, click the X to close the window.

The main part of the application will look like this (click to expand):

This part we call the canvas. It is where the translation and transformation of data is defined graphically. Although it might look complicated, it does not take much practice with FME to create workflows of this type.

Examine the left-hand side of the canvas:

This area is where we read data, in this case, Property Boundaries from a Shapefile and Bicycle Path data from GeoJSON files (the bicycle network and the property centroids).

Now, look at the right hand side:

This area is where we write data, in this case, a KML file showing a bicycle path between certain properties.

In between the reader and writer are objects that transform data. Labels and other annotations show us what the workspace does. It:

• Reads both Property Boundaries (Shapefile) and the Bicycle Paths (GeoJSON).

• Joins a list of parks to filter the property boundaries to known parks.

• Calculates the shortest bicycle path taking in all parks

• Creates KML Styling for the park areas and the calculated path

• Writes the data to a KML file to be used with Google Earth

NOTE

Let's make sure we are clear on terminology. The application itself is called FME "Workbench," but the process defined in the canvas window is called a "Workspace." The terms are easily confused.

3

Run FME Workspace

Let’s run this workspace.

Click on the green Run button on the Workbench toolbar:

The workspace will now run. As it does, you will see messages pass by in a log window. You may also see numbers appear on the canvas connections and green annotated icons on each object. We'll get to what these are for later!

NOTE

You may be prompted by a pop-up dialog box after running the workspace. By default, a feature called Prompt for User Parameters is turned on. We don't need this on for this course, so if prompted, turn it off by clicking the dropdown arrow next to the Run button the toolbar, and clicking Prompt for User Parameters

4

Locate and Examine Output

Once the translation is complete, click on the KML writer object on the canvas. It is located on the right side of the workspace and is labelled ParksBikeRoute. Choose the option to Open Containing Folder:

In the Explorer dialog that opens you will find the KML output:

Open the output file created by FME with Google Earth (double clicking it should open it in Google Earth by default). You will see the parks that are visited highlighted as green areas and the bike path taken to visit all of them as a red line:

NOTE

This small demonstration illustrates the power of FME. This workspace read data from multiple spatial datasets and wrote it out to a KML file to be used in Google Earth. In between it carried out a series of transformations and spatial analyses, joining and reprojecting the data and creating added value and information.

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CONGRATULATIONS

By completing this exercise, you have learned how to:

• Open an FME Workspace

• Run an FME Workspace

• Locate the output from an FME Workspace