Files
Introduction
Dissolving geometry solids is a 3D transformation in FME that removes common boundaries of smaller solids to create larger solids. This technique is commonly used to remove additional solid faces to improve rendering performance.
Step-by-step Instructions
1. Read in Buildings
Open FME Workbench and start a blank workspace. Add an FME Feature Store (FFS) reader to the canvas and browse to the NY_Test2_Solids_Sample.ffs dataset that is available for download from the Files section of this article.
2. Inspect Dataset
Click on the NY_Test2_Solids_Sample reader feature type to open the mini toolbar, then click on View Source Data to open the dataset in Data Preview (formerly Visual Preview).
This dataset contains five individual buildings that form a small cluster in New York City. To help render these solids quickly in a later project, we want to combine them (dissolve) into a single solid.
3. Dissolve Solids
Add a SolidDissolver transformer to the canvas and connect it to the reader feature type. We can accept the default parameters.
4. Run Workspace
Add an Inspector to the SolidDissolver Solid output port, then run the workspace. View the results in Data Preview.
Data Attribution
The original data was downloaded from OpenStreetMap under the Open Data Commons Open Database License and was modified and provided to us by HOK.