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Hello and happy 2025!

Was speculating on feature types selection possibilities when reading as a single merged feature type with a wildcard on flow.

My scenario being that a user will drag and drop a DWG to a Flow tool and then that said tool would read it in and then display all the feature types (layers) that said DWG consists of  in a list. Where the user could then check a box in front of each and every layer they need and afterwards select “Run” to start the main tool (which is a conversion into another file format).

Thus the tool not converting all features/layers within a file but only a selected few which are selected like one does for example with the “Feature types to read” option in the FeatureReader.

Anyone here done this before that wishes to share?

Hi ​@hlynur, Happy New Year!
If the feature types are always the same in the AutoCad file, then you can create a choice list published parameter with the layer names and link it to the reader’s “Feature Types to Read parameter”. This will give the user a list to choose from on FME Flow. But, I suspect you’re looking for a dynamic option, where the layers will be different in each file. That isn’t something FME can easily accomplish at the moment; it may be possible using python and a scripted parameter. There is an idea already filed for this type of functionality that you can vote on: 

 


Hey there ​@mattmatsafe and thanks for the quick response.

Yeah sadly it was the latter functionality I was looking for, not that we cant cope without it, so we will just keep on pushing for inhouse CAD standardisation as it helps so much in automatization tasks.

With regards, Hlynur


What you could do, is create a flow webapp that will take the file, then return an html page with all the feature types. In that html page you can create links to a second app/workspace which will do the actual conversion. Using parameters and webhooks that is a possibility.


Oi ​@s.jager sounds challenging (reads fun) will have a look!

-Hlynur


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