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Geoinformatics_04-2009
article vilnius is on track to become the first municipality to participate in the lgii. photo credit: thomas weihermuller. native gis software and formats, leaving the data interoperability legwork to a software solution. in this case, that software is fme, a spatial etl solution from vancouver, british columbia-based safe software that enables gis professionals to translate, transform, integrate and distribute spatial data from more than 225 formats. to succeed, the lgii had to simultaneously handle many spatial data formats and coordinate systems and readily transform data layers by user request - at the click of a mouse, says laimonas liskauskas, a software specialist with hnit-baltic and the lgii fme expert. that was key for the lgii and the inspire initiative. we surveyed several etl packages, but fme impressed us as a complete spatial etl solution that offers data integration, translation and transformation of customized datasets as well as an electronic delivery mechanism. unifying all of the project partners data together was one of the first challenges for the hnitbaltic team to resolve. using fme, liskauskas built four geo-referenced data harmonization models for integrating and converting the existing, distributed geospatial databases and a general template model for the lgii portal s transformation and download functionality. as the lgii structure took shape, the template model served as a master blueprint for liskauskas to easily create 38 other customized models to meet other specific service requirements. though the volume of data, differing levels of data quality, diversity of formats and workflows presented a complex data environment, it did not, however, translate to a complex modelbuilding environment, says liskauskas. fme has a very intuitive authoring environment, he says. you can create very generic models and then customize them to meet specific functionality. that reduces duplication efforts and simplifies transformation workflows because you build the model once and then you can repeat it, apply it and customize it as needed. to devise conversion rules, for example, i simply needed to choose the relevant fme transformer for my conversion goal and con- nect it to the data flow diagram, and it automatically controls the specified data conversion. fme also served as an effective control tool to ensure the lgii was built on a solid data foundation - a critical inspire principle. whether it was verifying the proper data schema, the completeness of data or identifying data duplicates, fme would alert the hnit-baltic team to possible data issues, enabling them to resolve specific questions and ultimately bring the quality control effort for a notable volume of data down to a manageable size. equally critical to the lgii was the ability to provide an open window to the geospatial data and efficiently deliver needed datasets on demand. as the majority of public agencies use esri s arcgis tools, liskauskas needed to ensure the lgii s web portal supported the arcgis environment. fme technology s support of this platform made it an easy choice, says liskauskas, enabling them to customize fme server to the arcgis server environment and to use fme s api to tightly integrate powerful data june 2009 32
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