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Your FME Ideas: Give us your elevator pitch!

  • May 12, 2016
  • 12 replies
  • 54 views
mark2atsafe
Safer
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I notice there are many, many great submissions in the Ideas section of this site.

If you've posted any ideas, here's a chance to gather some votes.

Select one of your ideas (but only one!) and add an answer here giving us all your elevator pitch for that idea.

Tell us what it does, why it's your one chosen idea, and why community members should vote for it!

Don't forget to include a link to the idea, so that we can find it and vote.

If you haven't posted any ideas, then why not pick an existing one you like and tell us all why you like it? Or leave a comment explaining why you voted for an idea and what it would mean for you.

Sound good? OK, on your marks... get set... GO!

FME Evangelist to the Rich and Famous!!
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    12 replies

    takashi
    Celebrity
    • takashiCelebrity
    • May 13, 2016

    It's difficult to select only one, but I would dare to choose this idea.

    Advanced Raster Cell Value Calculation

    Although FME supports raster manipulations widely, I think there still is a big room to improve efficiency especially for calculating cell values. The RasterCellCoercer + some transformers or script + NumericRasterizer could cover most use cases, but it would be too complicated and too slow! I hope this idea will be realized in the near future.

    Why not inspect features with Visual/Data Preview and Feature/Record Information before writing them into a destination dataset?
    K
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5
    • kim
    • May 13, 2016

    Can we have this one first?:)

    https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/28449/add-option-to-find-ideas-by-user.html

    jdh
    Contributor
    Forum|alt.badge.img+40
    • jdhContributor
    • Contributor
    • May 13, 2016

    Can we have this one first?:)

    https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/28449/add-option-to-find-ideas-by-user.html

    Not the idea I was going to pitch, but I can't find the one I was looking for, so I see merit in your suggestion.

    jdh
    Contributor
    Forum|alt.badge.img+40
    • jdhContributor
    • Contributor
    • May 13, 2016

    My first choice was going to be the focal analysis pitch I gave on stage at the FME User conference, but since I can't track down that idea, my second choice is a variation of Dave's

     

    WorkspaceRunner - Identify when all child processes are complete

     

     

    Currently the workspace runner allows us to run the child workspaces one at a time, waits for them to complete and reports back on their success or failure, OR launches up to 7 workspaces at a time, but doesn't track the process.

     

     

    So there is no way to take advantage of simultaneous processing and once all the child processes are complete continue the workflow.

     

     

    A case i encounter many times is dealing with datasets that are too large to process the entire dataset in one shot. The solution is to tile the dataset in the parent workspace and then process each tile via a workspaceRunner, and then reassemble all the tiles for any further processing. However, in this scenario we cannot take advantage of the concurrent processing, because if we are not waiting for the job to complete, the parent workspace is trying to reassemble the tiles before they are finished being processed.

     

     

    I see two possible ways to improve this:

    1) on the WorkspaceRunner don't make Wait for Job to Complete: Yes and Maximum Number of Concurrent Workspaces mutually exclusive. Allow up to 7 concurrent workspaces, but each feature is released only when it's process is complete.

     

     

    2) the trigger features exist the WorkspaceRunner with the id of the child process as an attribute. There is a new transformer that checks whether a process has been complete (via the id attribute).

     

     

    My preference is for number 1.
    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5

    Can we have this one first?:)

    https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/28449/add-option-to-find-ideas-by-user.html

    Yes, we saw that and are definitely going to implement it as soon as we can.

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5

    It's difficult to select only one, but I would dare to choose this idea.

    Advanced Raster Cell Value Calculation

    Although FME supports raster manipulations widely, I think there still is a big room to improve efficiency especially for calculating cell values. The RasterCellCoercer + some transformers or script + NumericRasterizer could cover most use cases, but it would be too complicated and too slow! I hope this idea will be realized in the near future.

    Yes, I really like that idea. It's something I've long wanted to do, and there was a project I did recently that really needed it. It has my vote!

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5

    My first choice was going to be the focal analysis pitch I gave on stage at the FME User conference, but since I can't track down that idea, my second choice is a variation of Dave's

     

    WorkspaceRunner - Identify when all child processes are complete

     

     

    Currently the workspace runner allows us to run the child workspaces one at a time, waits for them to complete and reports back on their success or failure, OR launches up to 7 workspaces at a time, but doesn't track the process.

     

     

    So there is no way to take advantage of simultaneous processing and once all the child processes are complete continue the workflow.

     

     

    A case i encounter many times is dealing with datasets that are too large to process the entire dataset in one shot. The solution is to tile the dataset in the parent workspace and then process each tile via a workspaceRunner, and then reassemble all the tiles for any further processing. However, in this scenario we cannot take advantage of the concurrent processing, because if we are not waiting for the job to complete, the parent workspace is trying to reassemble the tiles before they are finished being processed.

     

     

    I see two possible ways to improve this:

    1) on the WorkspaceRunner don't make Wait for Job to Complete: Yes and Maximum Number of Concurrent Workspaces mutually exclusive. Allow up to 7 concurrent workspaces, but each feature is released only when it's process is complete.

     

     

    2) the trigger features exist the WorkspaceRunner with the id of the child process as an attribute. There is a new transformer that checks whether a process has been complete (via the id attribute).

     

     

    My preference is for number 1.

    From a technical point of view I have no idea how we would do that. Thankfully that's not my job! As you say, the crux of the issue is not being able to use simultaneous processing while waiting for the jobs to finish. I agree it's an important issue and I hope you pick up some votes for this.

    david_r
    Celebrity
    • david_rCelebrity
    • May 17, 2016

    Hi Mark

    As said by others, it is really difficult to choose only one, but I'd really like to see multiple output ports on the PythonCaller et al., c.f. this posting: https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/24903/add-rejected-port-to-the-pythoncaller.html

    David

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5

    Hi Mark

    As said by others, it is really difficult to choose only one, but I'd really like to see multiple output ports on the PythonCaller et al., c.f. this posting: https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/24903/add-rejected-port-to-the-pythoncaller.html

    David

    I don't use Python that often, but I can see how that would be useful. Right now I guess you'd need to set an attribute and follow up with a Tester.

    david_r
    Celebrity
    • david_rCelebrity
    • May 17, 2016

    I don't use Python that often, but I can see how that would be useful. Right now I guess you'd need to set an attribute and follow up with a Tester.

    That's right. First the PythonCaller where you set and expose the attribute, then a Tester/TestFilter, then an AttributeRemover to clean up. It's feels rather clunky.

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+5

    Can we have this one first?:)

    https://knowledge.safe.com/content/idea/28449/add-option-to-find-ideas-by-user.html

    Actually, what you can do is search for a generic term (like "FME") then use the options on the right hand side to filter by ideas and by a specific username. You do have to create a search first, but FME is likely to be in most ideas - or just search for a single letter like "a" or "e". Hope that helps.

    jdh
    Contributor
    Forum|alt.badge.img+40
    • jdhContributor
    • Contributor
    • May 18, 2016

    Actually, what you can do is search for a generic term (like "FME") then use the options on the right hand side to filter by ideas and by a specific username. You do have to create a search first, but FME is likely to be in most ideas - or just search for a single letter like "a" or "e". Hope that helps.

    That didn't quite work. The search seems to pick up whole words only. Searching for 'e' picks up 'e-mail' and '[A B C D E F]' but not 'the'.

     

     

    Searching by username with an ideas filter pulls up all the ideas authored and commented on. The username filter does not alter those results.

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