Form Basics - Exercise 1
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.
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.
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
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
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:
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
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