take the edge off Survey, GIS

lots of acronyms - whats all the fuss about?

We love our FDO’s because we can link external data (ESRI SHP files etc) like an X-Ref. (we can do a lot more as well but we’re fond of the simple stuff)

The only problem with this is that FDO Data Connections do not have MAPINFO or MICROSTATION formats by default. These can be linked with the OGR provider but this has some problems, particularly with large data sets. The solution to all this is FME ….(feature manipulation engine - the parts we need are free…)

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First of all, What is FME?

“…FME is a powerful spatial ETL platform designed to seamlessly extract, translate, transform, integrate and distribute spatial data in over 200 GIS, CAD, raster and database formats….”

http://www.safe.com

The FME engine is licenced by many companies for GIS data translation.

The option to add it to the FDO provider list has been available for a while but you had to purchase the FME software first. It was announced recently that the AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 FME FDO Provider is free for the 9 formats in the old Map>tools>import. The data comes in Live and Funky so it can be updated by selecting ‘refresh’ - imagine having the Mapinfo/Microstation data sitting behind your DWG file like an X-Ref so that when the files are updated…

How do I install/configure it?

To install, download and run the msi file from this link.

This installs 3 dll files to the fdo/bin folder and adds the FME_Import FeatureProvider code to the providers.xml file.
(fmefdoimport.dll, fme.dll, fmeutilities.dll, providers.xml in C:\Program Files\AutoCAD Map 3D 2008\FDO\bin)

(you don’t really need to worry about this too much to use this particular app, but it is useful to be aware of the providers.xml file for some other installations.)

• On the Map Task Pane (mapwspace), click Data on the Display Manager - you should see the FME Import Format Connection
• Click the ellipsis button next to the formats pull down to select the file types needed - the formats ticked will appear on the pull down list.

How do i use it?

One of the best things about FDO’s is that once you know how to import data from one of them, you more or less know all of them.

• Select the format from the list
• For a single file, click the ellipsis button next to the Dataset list and browse to the file.
• Click ‘Connect’
• Select the schema(s)
• Select ‘Add to Map’

It isn’t always just a single file though - to test it out, I downloaded the Sydney Special from the Geoscience Australia website. The data is arranged into 10 folders, each with subfolders containing the TAB files.

If you want to bring all this data in one hit to see if it looks more or less right, you don’t want to have to browse to each subfolder. Instead,

• Press the ‘+’ button instead of the ellipsis
• Select ‘Add Folder’ and browse
• Tick the ‘Subfolders’ box before clicking OK
• Click ‘Connect’ -(wait a little while)- Select all the schemas and click ‘Add to Map’

This produces the Map below for us - we can see that it is the correct data. All that remains to be done is to arrange the layers into groups.

The last word..

The only limitation here is that the FME-FDO is read only. We can’t check out some of the data, edit the geometry and check it back in.
The OGR provider does allow this functionality but is not completely stable. There is a whisper on the grapevine about the open source community producing a dedicated TAB provider - this will be very welcome in Australia, but in the meantime, the free version here will keep us ticking over nicely.

Cheers,
SeanT