‘Call Before You Dig’: Improved Digitization

1. FME Around the World

2. ‘Call Before You
Dig’:
Improved
Digitization
Jelle De Zwaef
Avineon Europe
BELGIUM

3. About Jelle & Avineon
Avineon is a global technology company
specializing in information technology,
geospatial, and engineering services for
government and private industry.
Geographer with a twist for IT
FME enthusiast since 2006
Avineon Jelle De Zwaef

4. Challenge: ‘Call before you dig’
• Flemish government now requires underground
cable and pipe information to be shared
• The goal is to support the new digital Call Before
You Dig (CBYD) portal
• Owners need to provide data to a complex, pre-
defined data model (SDF3)
• Existing process is manually intensive and error
prone

5. Call before you dig: Cable and pipe data

6. FME Solution: ‘Call before you dig’
Manual activity - interpret plans
• capture simple objects, limited set of attributes
FME automation
• Create standardized cable and pipe objects
• IDs, relationships and links automatically generated
• Validity checks for attribute values and geometry types
• Transform to standard data model and format (FDO SDF3)
Project goals: Faster, increased quality, cost reduction

7. Digitization process with FME
Deliverable results:
1. Georeferenced TIFF/DWG
2. Georeferenced PDF
3. SDF file (Flemish standard)

8. Complexity of Input: Manual interpretation
TIFF DWG
Georeferenced PDF, manual digitization Manual interpretation instructions

9. Parse Cable
Information
,-sign splits pipe
content
;-sign splits cables
Object Generation Workflow
• One input segment
produces several cable and
pipe objects
Key Transformers Used
• AttributeSplitter
• ListExploder
• Cloner

10. Set Network
Theme
Operators:
Contains, Begin_With,
Empty, Missing, =
Themes:
Electricity, Telecom,
Electricity_Backstop

11. Reduced throughput time
Increased quality
Generic solution – many customers
Overall cost reduction

12. Calculating
Survey
Coordinates for
Directional
Wells with FME
Jerrod Stutzman
Devon Energy
USA

13. Problem: Raw Surveys “Unmappable”
• Directional Surveys for wells generally received in
“raw” format (measured depth (MD), azimuth (Az), and
inclination (I).
• In order to map, need to convert survey stations to XYZ
coordinates.
• Most accurate method to calculate N and E offsets –
Minimum Curvature Method

14. Considerations
• Azimuth angle can be recorded in True, Grid, or Magnetic North.
Must correct for convergence! There are equations, but also a
custom transformer.
• Surface Hole location must be known for well to convert ΔN/ΔE to
ΔLon/ΔLat
• Geoscience database stores both sets of coordinates:
- ΔN/ΔE and ΔLon/ΔLat
- ΔN/ΔE needs directional indicators (N,S,E,W)
- ΔLon/ΔLat requires +/- to indicate direction

15. http://os.is/gogn/unu-gtp-report/UNU-GTP-2013-27.pdf
Minimum Curvature Method
This math is all replicated in FME!

16. Workbench Overview
Screenshots of FME workbench math
Minimum Curvature
Calculations happen here

17. “Multiple Feature Attribute
Support” is the magic behind
this process. Without it, this
would not be possible.
This allows us to use attribute
values from previous (or
subsequent) features!
Workbench: Minimum Curvature Calculations

18. Math Translation to FME - Example
No, it’s not pretty, but it is effective!!
feature[-1].Inc refers to the Inclination value from the previous feature
feature[-1].Azi is the Azimuth value from the previous feature

19. Data points are converted from azimuth, inclination, and depth values to
X/Y Offsets and Lat/Lon Offsets. These can be used to map data in
standard coordinate systems (and even in 3 dimensions!)
Summary

20. Directional Survey Points Mapped in 2D and 3D
3D view2D (top-down)
view

21. Automate complex tasks –
even math – with a workspace
that maps the unmappable.

22. Creating Maps
and Landscapes
with FME and
Blender 3D
Owen Powell
Arup
United Kingdom

23. About Owen
Owen Powell
Senior GIS Consultant
Arup, UK

24. Blender is a Free & Open
Source 3D modeling and
animation package
• Supports .obj .dae .fbx .3ds
.shp .wrl .svg
• Python scripting & many add-
ons

25. Yosemite, CA

26. Yosemite, CA (orthographic view)

27. FME enables the creation of
surfaces from LIDAR data
Devon, England

28. FME process

29. SurfaceModeller output

30. Creating textures, bump & specular maps

33. Look familiar?

35. When spatial meets
creative, the
possibilities are
beautifully endless.
owenpowell.wordpress.com

36. 3D Printing a
City
City of Oslo
Agency for Planning and
Building Services
Department of Mapping
NORWAY

37. The Model
• Scale – 1:1,000
• 7.6 x 4.5 meters
• Laser-cut wooden
base with staggered
heights (min
elevations)
• 360 blocks – A3 size

38. Workflow
Terrain:
Color:
Reference:
Buildings:

39. Data Prep: Terrain
• LiDAR source
• Filtered to terrain
• Interim raster DEM
• Produce triangulated regular
network (TRN) – surface with
regular polygons

40. Data Prep: Terrain
• Full-color printing
• Drape geoTIFF over
TRN surface
• AppearanceSetter

41. Data Prep: Buildings
• SOSI format
• Conversion to 3D
objects
• “Waterproofing”

42. Printing the Blocks
• Merge buildings and
terrain in print
program
• Optimize materials
with variable height
frame and hollowed
blocks

43. The model rests on an orthophoto of the surrounding area.

44. An incredibly ambitious
undertaking made possible
(and updateable) through
intelligent project design
and automation.

45. SmartAsBuilt
A Fiber Optical
Application
Corrado d’Alessandro
GESP
ITALY

46. As-Built - Defined
• Show what was actually completed compared
to the planned work.
• Adjust billing based on work completed.
• Plan maintenance on actual infrastructure.

47. As-Built – Challenges
• Time consuming.
• Doesn’t add immediate value as maintenance
comes later.
• Construction is complete and the next project
calls...

48. Workflow
GTECH NTV2
interchange
format
Mobile app WEB app
Output and reports

49. Prepare for the survey
• Install the Android app to the tablet.
• Download tiled map (if in offline mode).
• Download network data from server (if it exists)

50. Collect the data
• Places and edit nodes and infrastructure lines.
• Populates node, tube and cable attributes.
• Saves and sends data to the server
(XLS with OGC WKT).

51. Fix and attribute collected data
• Adds, modifies, deletes objects.
• Populates node and line attributes.

52. Generate maps, reports and schemas

54. Map 1
(DWG)
Bill of material
(XLS)
Map 2
(DWG)
Linear schema
(DWG)
Optical schema
(DWG)
 XLS Template

55. Why it’s great!
• More confidence in
completed work.
• Faster payment for
contractors.
• Better data for maintenance
contractors.

56. Take Customers
to the (FME)
Cloud
Brett Madsen
Permuto
AUSTRALIA

58. In house hosted
web mapping App
On Premise In the Cloud

59. Source datasets
Object URL
S3 download bucket
Output data .zip
Dynamo DB
All user parameters output
for analytics
AWS SES
SMTP email service

60. Master Workspace

61. Calling Worker

62. Worker Workspace
Packages ancillary files into zip
Feature Reader grabs data from S3 Object URL
Multiple format
outputs

64. FME Cloud + AWS
provides a robust
platform without
the infrastructure

65. Minecraft:
Coming Full
Circle
Shaun Lewis & Paul Funnell
Brecon Beacons National Park
Authority
Boele Kuipers, Kartverket
Zev Seltzer, Northampton High
School
UK – NORWAY - USA

66. Spatial and Minecraft
2013: “How to impress your kids and
be a cool dad.”
2015: Urban planning and
sustainability outreach, engage youth
in education, stress test an open data
portal platform.
2016: Full circle: Next generation of
spatial pros.

67. Rules automate styling Collaboration refines detail
UK: Getting Ever-Realer
Shaun Lewis & Paul Funnell
Brecon Beacons National Park Authority

69. Norway
Kids’ Hackathon turned real-world test bed
Boele Kuipers, Kartverket
• Junior Hackathon – built an FME-powered
on-demand MC world generator/downloader
• With media coverage, demand surged
• Stress-tested platform for cloud-based Open
Data Portal

70. Northampton, MA in Minecraft
Zev Seltzer, Senior, Northampton High School
Jeromie Whalen – Teacher
All Williams, Northampton Community Television
• Capstone project
supported by
NCTV and FME
Grant Program

73. Outcomes
• Minecraft world available for education &
tourism applications
• Learning:
• Translatable spatial technology skills
• Project management
• Team management
• Building real-world skills through fun

74. Minecraft is engaging
minds.

75. Automating a
Sales &
Marketing
Strategy using
FME
Brendan Cunningham
Pin Point Alerts
IRELAND

76. About the Text Alert service
• 200 clients for a specific product requiring a personal
service
• Went live during 2013 – over 3 million SMS issued since
• 3 members of staff
• Many challenges to further grow the number of clients
• Chosen Solution: Develop a few FME Workspaces

77. ®
What is
Community
Text Alert?

79. Administration now largely conducted
through a series of
easy-to-manage workspaces

80. Original Expectations
• Client retention // Generate proposal
documents
• CRM // Log all client activity
• Basic sales and marketing strategies

81. FME now manages…
• Payments // Send payment reminders & itemized receipts to
clients
• Client retention // Generate proposal documents & hooks (e.g.
AGM Reports) CRM // Log all client usage activity
• CRM // Log all call records (times/durations, etc) & Geocode
client Database
• Marketing // Geo-localised proposals
• Sales // Generate initial “personal” proposals
• Competition Analysis // Compare locally!
• Email campaigns // Product updates, sales campaigns

82. Example: Competition Analysis

83. Our competitor published this…

84. Available from Irish Gov.
A contact list of all potential clients

87. Looking for non-
traditional uses for
FME resulted in
huge cost and time
savings.