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I'm looking to work with some information in Google's Protocol Buffer format, but it appears that FME doesn't naively support it. Short of creating some python/java (and external libraries) to read and convert it to JSON, but I wanted to see if anyone had any experience working with it and FME. I did a quick look around and found this blog post from a few years back describing how they use(d) it for sending messages back and forth in FME Server, but I can't seem to find anything else about it online.

Anyone have any experience working with Protocol buffers and/or FME and would have tips on how to best proceed?

We don't natively do any work with this, but have just completed adding the ProtocolBuf implementation of OpenStreetMap via OGR in FME. So this got us to dip our toe in that water. We are planning a "generic" protobuf implementation in FME for the future, but it won't be in time for any project you'll be doing right now. We were planning to do it in Python if that is any help.

Do keep us posted as to your progress (and I'd also love to know the application you're planning to exchange data with too if you're able to share).


We don't natively do any work with this, but have just completed adding the ProtocolBuf implementation of OpenStreetMap via OGR in FME. So this got us to dip our toe in that water. We are planning a "generic" protobuf implementation in FME for the future, but it won't be in time for any project you'll be doing right now. We were planning to do it in Python if that is any help.

Do keep us posted as to your progress (and I'd also love to know the application you're planning to exchange data with too if you're able to share).

Thanks Dale - I am currently using some python libraries to do the work for now in parsing the Protocol Buffer feed - it's for live transit vehicle positioning for Vancouver. Just exploring to see what I can do it with it at this point, but once I've got something cool I'll gladly send it your way.


We don't natively do any work with this, but have just completed adding the ProtocolBuf implementation of OpenStreetMap via OGR in FME. So this got us to dip our toe in that water. We are planning a "generic" protobuf implementation in FME for the future, but it won't be in time for any project you'll be doing right now. We were planning to do it in Python if that is any help.

Do keep us posted as to your progress (and I'd also love to know the application you're planning to exchange data with too if you're able to share).

Hi Dale, does that mean that https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/21035/reader-for-osm-data-in-pbf-format.html is about to be in beta?


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