FME and OGC Open Standards

Dean Hintz
Dean Hintz
  • Updated

Introduction

Open standards allow users to build applications on well-established community-based standards so they can reduce dependence on vendor-based proprietary formats. This allows different applications that conform to the same standards to readily integrate with each other. 

Safe Software has made open standards support a central priority from the beginning. The first format supported by FME was SAIF, a predecessor to GML, and inspired the name of the company.  In fact, the central vision of Safe Software: maximizing the value of your data through integration, transformation, and automation, which is closely aligned with that of the OGC - Make location information more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). Safe Software is a Technical Member, regularly attends technical committee meetings, and is an active participant in a number of standards and domain working groups and pilots.

Within FME, OGC standards work as any typical FME format. One big advantage is that the library and standards updates are maintained within FME so typically all that is required to maintain compatibility with the latest versions is to keep FME version up to date. 

It’s important to recognize the specific standard being used and select the specific named format rather than a more general version of the standard. For example, if the data is CityGML, it's better to select CityGML rather than just GML. On the other hand, selecting CityGML when in fact the data is just GML will cause problems. On the other hand, there are many types of data that can be read or written by the JSON, GeoJSON, GML, and XML reader/writers. For example, even though we do not have named readers/writers for GeoSciML or InfraGML, data from these formats can be read and written with the standard GML reader/writer, provided the appropriate GML application schema files are used. Also, there are numerous formats based on JSON, GeoJSON, CSV, and text that can be consumed and generated by FME.

When adding a new reader or writer based on XML/GML standards, this often involves a 2 step process. The first step involves setting the dataset and schema path. Often there is a second step that involves a schema scan which then presents a list of available themes or feature types to choose from. The second step can be repeated when importing new feature types to an existing reader or writer. Note that the setting to be used here is called ‘Feature Type Definition’ and this usually needs to be set to ‘Import from Dataset’ whether or not you are importing from the actual dataset or its schema.

For more information on how to work with specific standards, most standards have an associated tutorial to help you get started.
 

Articles

Getting Started Tutorials

Getting Started with 3D
Getting Started with JSON
Getting Started with KML
Getting Started with Point Clouds
Getting Started with Rasters
Getting Started with XML 
 

Intermediate Tutorials

BIM Tutorial
Tutorial: 3D Transformations 
Tutorial: Data Validation and QA
Tutorial: EU INSPIRE Initiative
Tutorial: KML Transformations
Tutorial: Point Cloud Transformations 
 

Advanced Tutorials

Tutorial: Creating and Validating IMDF Datasets
Troubleshooting WFS
 

Other Articles 

AIXM 4.5 and 5.1 Reading, Writing and Validation - EU Airports Demo
AIXM Airports to INSPIRE Air Transport Networks
​​​​​​​FME OGC Maritime Limits and Boundaries S-121 GML Pilot
Integration example for OGC CSW Data Catalog And Repository with FME Server
​​​​​​​Invalid OGC Geometry Examples
OGC CSW Metadata Query
OGC Indoor GML Pilot 
 

Documentation

 

Top Questions and Answers

GeometryValidator "OGC Simple Compliant" meaning?
OGC GeoPackage metadata: geometry registered as a common geometry type: "geometry"

 

Additional Resources

Blog:

The Importance of the OGC & Open Standards
​​​​​​​KML is an OGC Open Specification!
 

Webinars:

Efficiently Implementing INSPIRE & Creating INSPIRE Mashups with FME  
Using Data Integration to Deliver Intelligence to Anyone, Anywhere
​​​​​​​XMLathon with Don and Dean

 

OGC Compliance

Achieving Compliance: OGC GML 3.2.1
Achieving OGC Compliance: GeoPackage 1.2, GeoTIFF 1.1, GML 3.2.1, KML 2.2.0

Formats: OGC Standards

CityGML 1.0,2.0,3.0*, ADE’s CityJSON GML 3.3.1*, 3.2.2, 3.2.1, 3.1.1, 2.1.2 GeoSciML
Geopackage Geopackage Tiles GeoRSS GeoTIFF
GMLJP2 / JPEG2000 GML Indexed 3D Scene Layer (I3S) Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) IndoorGML
InfraGML KML LAS NetCDF
OGC API Features OGC WKT S-121 GML Simple Features GML
WaterML WCS WFS WMS
WMTS      

*partial support - in development

 

Other Standards

W3C: XML, XSD XML, HTML ISO: 19115 Metadata BSI: IFC INSPIRE: INSPIRE GML
IETF: GeoJSON EPSG: CRS PostGIS Unidata: NetCDF
Proj6: CRS OSM GDAL DGIWG

 

Other Standards' Formats

Adobe Geospatial PDF Adobe 3D PDF AIS (NMEA Automatic Identification System) AIXM, AIXM5.2
BAG - Bathymetric Attributed Grid CARIS NTX Cesium CSV
DTOX Defence Topographic Exchange GML ERDAS IMG Esri ArcGIS Online Esri File Geodatabase
Esri Enterprise Geodatabase GDAL formats GeoJSON GeoTIFF
Google Sheets HDF4 HDFS HTTP (web connections)
HTML INSPIRE GML JDBC JPEG2000
JSON Microsoft Excel Microsoft Azure MrSid
Oracle OSM Open Street Map OS MasterMap MapBox MB Tiles
MapBox Vector Tiles NetCDF PointCloud PCD Point Cloud XYZ
PostGIS R RSS / GeoRSS S-57
S-101 Shapefile SQLite Tableau
TerraSolid Terrascan Terrain Tiles on AWS Text TopoJSON
USGSDEM XML XSD XML  

 

External Resources

OGC Standards
Safe.com Defence and Aerospace Solutions
Emergency Services Solutions
DGIWG

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