Friday, September 30, 2005

Update to the FME GTViewer Reader/Writer



The latest FME Beta (build 2125) from Safe Software includes an update to the GTViewer FME Reader/Writer Modules. This update includes several fixes that have accumulated since the modules were introduced, and more importantly it includes a significant amount of new functionality for making the GTViewer modules more powerful and easier to use.

The original Writer Module was only able to produce one GTViewer category per Destination Dataset in FME. While this limitation did not prevent multiple categories from being created, it now only requires the setting of gti_categoryId format attribute. The value the gti_categoryId attribute is set to now determines the GTViewer category the feature will be written to.

This update also allows the users to create an Overview category. In the previous version, the Overview category was automatically generated with a single data bounding rectangle. Now, any feature written with gti_categoryId equal to 1 will be written to the Overview category.

A new directive file called catNameMapInfo.txt has also been added to allow a simple text file to map category names and category display settings (display on/on, min/max thresholds) to be statically defined in the GTViewer output directory. If the directive file is present, it will be used to fill in names and settings in the .GTM file produced. The GTM Directive files (genInfo.txt, addInfo.txt, catInfo.txt, and catNameMap.txt) can all be optionally used to provide information that is not necessary part of the conversion process, but is part of the polished results. By using these directive files, you should not have to modify the .GTM file after the conversion process.

GTI will continue to improve the GTViewer Reader/Writer modules for FME as they have proven to be a very powerful means of getting data into and out of the GTViewer format. Through the use of FME, GTViewer, Pocket GTViewer, GTVx, and GTWeb can be used with any of the data formats FME Supports.

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