One thing I was thinking if there is some ready symbology for fme? Example if im doing with imagerasterizer, is there any attribute what would tell to rasterizer to draw that line like this and so on?
Because now we can bring color for line with fme_color.. Maybe there could be fme_linesymbol and fme_symbol too?
It's a very general question and I'm afraid that means a very general answer too:
It depends...
Unless you're @donatsafe, in that case the answer is always XML ;)
The best input format is the one that has everything you need, the best output format is the one that does everything you want. But even if it's the best format, if the data schema is incomplete or the contents are bad you still need to do a lot of prep.
Data is messy and in a way I'm glad it is, because if it'd be perfect a lot of FME people would be out of a job.
I do sense there might be a more specific question hidden in your post so please feel free to elaborate and we'll try to help you as best as we can.
As Hans says, the best format is the one with everything you need.
Personally, if it comes to a choice of source formats for the spatial parts only - not attributes - I would go with a CAD format like DWG or DGN. In my opinion (i.e. this isn't a scientific study nor an official Safe recommendation) those formats support the widest range of geometry types, allow different linestyles to be set up, and have the ability to store point features as symbols (blocks or cells).
FME can read most of the geometries (specialist 3D ones are probably the most limited right now), it can identify the linestyle used, it can read symbols as single points or using the outline of the symbol, and the formats are some of the ones FME can read the fastest. So FME handles these formats quite well and the setup once you get the data into FME is minimized. You can set it up so that if source linestyle = x then output style = y.
Having said that, there's obviously more setup involved in the source data. And I'm very familiar with those formats/applications so I'm not put off by them. I think it comes down to how your source data is being created. If you're outsourcing it and can ask for any format you like, then I don't suppose it matters. But if you're doing it yourself and using ArcGIS (for example) there's not much point exporting that to DGN just for the sake of reading it back into FME.
I also agree when Hans says, if you can elaborate on the scenario we might be able to help a little more.
