Announcement: FME Universal Spatial Data Translator Now Shipping
Dale A. Lutz
Safe Software Inc. is pleased to announce that its universal spatial
data translator product -- the Feature Manipulation Engine (FME)(tm) --
is now shipping.
The FME is a powerful, configurable, peer-to-peer spatial data translator
which allows sophisticated spatial processing and attribute manipulation
during translation between:
o MapInfo MID/MIF
o IGDS/Microstation Design Files
o AutoCAD DXF/DWG (up to and including R13)
o ESRI Shape
o ESRI Generate/Ungenerate
o ESRI Spatial Database Engine
o GIF (Image Output Only)
o Spatial Archive and Interchange Format (SAIF)
o BC MOEP
o CSV, DBF, Column Aligned Text Database Formats
More formats are being added all the time, and a developer kit is planned
for mid '97 to allow sophisticated users to "roll-their-own".
The FME ships with a variety of generic configurations that will solve
most user's translation needs with a simple point and click. However,
advanced users are able to take the FME beyond its generic translation
capabilities by configuring the FME for custom translations through its
editable ASCII control file. The FME can be set up to extract and output
data in EXACTLY the way you want. Part of the power comes from FME's
ability to apply a variety of operations to data as it is translated.
In fact, there is no need for the source and destination formats to be
different -- the FME can be used to accomplish transformations which
would otherwise be difficult or awkward to do within many traditional
GIS systems. Available operations include:
o COORDINATE CONVERSIONS: Convert between over 600 coordainte systems,
130 datums, and 37 referenced ellipsoids. If these aren't sufficient
then the FME allows you to define your own!
o TOPOLOGY OPERATIONS: Remove duplicate arcs, connect arcs, form
polygons, or dissolve polygons on the fly.
o ATTRIBUTE OPERATIONS: Read or write feature attributes from/to
DBF or ASCII files, or live databases (contact Safe Software for
availability). Both 1-1 and 1-Many relations are supported.
o GEOMETRIC OPERATIONS: Purge area features less than some threshold
size, generalize area, and line features. Calculate Area() and
Lengths()
The FME provides a single universal spatial data solution, removing the
need for separate translation programs to be purchased and maintained for
each translation. The product is stable, and has been available to
selected customers for more than a year now. But don't take our word
for it -- here's what some of our early adopters are saying:
"Because many FME operations perform so much faster and more simply
than with conventional software, very complex manipulations can be
run routinely. Two reasons for its overall power are (i) a clever,
readily extensible systems architecture, and (ii) a high degree of
compliance with geographic modeling concepts emerging from national
and international standardization efforts."
Mark Sondheim, PH. D.,
Head, Strategic Developments
Geographic Data BC, Province of BC
"The FME's powerful configurability allows us to construct solutions
to problems in minutes rather than days. We no longer find ourselves
writing C code to move our Intergraph data around -- instead we just
whip up a new configuration and move on to actually using the data,
as opposed to fighting with it."
Dave Ash
Senior Technical Analyst
Vivid Solutions Inc.
Victoria, B.C.
"Safe Software provides a fast and easy to use translation application
with diverse functionality that is directly controlled through
a script file. A responsive product support staff helped us to
customize our output to suite our customer's needs."
Ernie Pacholuk,
Madrone Consultants Ltd.
Duncan, B.C.
The FME is available for Windows NT/95, and a multi-user server
version is available for Solaris, DEC Alpha, and other UNIX systems.
For additional background information, pricing, and a LIVE DEMO, visit
the FME web page at:
or contact us via email at:
or via the more traditional methods:
Safe Software Inc.
Suite 105
10720 - 138 Street
Surrey, BC V3T 4K5
Phone: (604) 583-2016
Fax: (604) 930-8407
We'll also be at GIS/LIS in Denver next week as part of the Avenza booth
(#623), and we'll be part of Tuesday's panel on SDTS. And watch for
additional FME announcements at the conference. Hope to see you there!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale Lutz Safe Software Inc. d...@safe.com
Surrey, BC, CANADA phone: (604) 501-1580
http://www.safe.com/dal fax: (604) 930-8407
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave
I am a graduate student in Geography with an emphasis in GIS.
What news groups are available with GIS related topics?
Thanks.
cadastre
The standard answer to your question applies to any topic. Go to Dejanews
enter your subject or topic and Dejanews does the rest. You will find that
the newsgroup "comp.infosystems.gis" is theeeee! one when it comes to GIS
topics and it is one of the more active of the technical news groups.
Happy hunting
Dave <Gr...@mwci.net> wrote in article <56h3rh$8p4$1...@hihat.mwci.net>...