Welcome to our December FME Community User Spotlight! Every month, we’ll be spotlighting a user in the community whose active participation and helpful contributions have been invaluable to the community. We’re excited to highlight their experiences and insights!
User Spotlight: Birgit Ligtvoet @birgit
What’s your name?
Birgit Ligtvoet
What company do you currently work for?
Boskalis
What’s your current job role and title?
GIS Specialist
Tell us more about what you do and how you use FME?
I work in a team of 12 GIS Specialists of which about 3/4 work on providing data to both our colleagues and clients through GIS viewers.
I am a little bit more on the technical side of things and I often focus on automating things and making standard tools for either my direct colleagues or people in the rest of the company. To do this I of course use FME but I also make use of the ArcGIS REST api, the VertiGIS studio suite, the Autodesk construction cloud api and a lot more.
Basically, I spend time making FME workspaces that are triggered from a VertiGIS viewer or making FME workspaces that automate stuff on and around our portal.
Why did you join the FME Community?
I joined after some light persuasion from one of my colleagues who hangs out in the FME Community a lot! I actively read the forums but find I’ll typically need some more background information when trying to help someone in the forums.
What tips do you have for users on how to get the most out of the FME Community?
While the rise of AI has enabled people to answer questions in languages they don’t speak, I suggest asking in English as it will get more eyes on your question.
Second, just reading other people’s questions and problems allows you to learn as well, even if you can’t apply that knowledge to the work you’re doing at the moment.
Third, if you’re new to FME, do the FME Academy courses!
Tell us about some of the exciting use cases you’ve built using FME.
Last year, I worked together with our international survey department to automate the creation of deliverables that match the SSDM data model. It was something I hadn’t really done before and, next to the technical challenges of creating high resolution rasters, we also had to deal with standardizing the input files for the workspace.
When it was time to create the deliverables, the surveyors on the project were able to gather the files, pre-process the data, and convert it with FME Form within two weeks. After getting some feedback, they resubmitted two weeks later and got approval from the client.
Another use case I am very proud of is our automatic publishing workspace. With a little case by case tweaking, the workspace allows my colleagues to read .dwg files from Autodesk Construction Cloud, convert them to FGDB point, line, area and multipatch Feature Classes, and publish (or overwrite) them as Map Image Layers and Scene Layers in our Esri environment.
What’s one of your favourite tips or tricks for using FME?
Use both bookmarks and comments, not just one or the other. If you get stuck, start cleaning up your workbench, add those comments and bookmarks, and untangle your connections. A clear workspace is a clear mind according to a machining instructor who once gave me an introduction to using a lathe.
Number your bookmarks so they show up sequentially in your navigator. If you know that you want to run your workflow on FME flow, then start using parameters immediately instead of trying to incorporate them later because you don’t feel like doing it now.
And last but most importantly, use the FeatureReader and FeatureWriter instead of the classic readers and writers. Why? Because they make less clutter in the workspace, don’t throw warnings when you read half the available feature types, and they contain all the settings in the transformer itself instead of 50% in the workspace area and 50% in the navigator area.
If you were stranded on an island and could only bring three things with you, what would they be?
The classic laptop even without internet available, some clothes, and a satellite phone so I can call for someone to come pick me up.
If you could work from anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Bali, yes an island but not uninhabited like I assume the other one is.
