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Understanding Content Transformation

Content transformations are those that operate on the geometry or attribute content of a dataset.

Geometric Transformation

Geometric Transformation is the act of restructuring the spatial component of an FME feature. In other words, the physical geometry of the feature undergoes some form of change to produce a different output.

Some examples of geometric transformation are…

  • Generalization – a cartographic process that restructures data to be more easily visualized at a given map scale.
  • Warping – adjustment of the size and shape of a set of features to more closely match a set of reference data.
  • Topology Computation – conversion of a set of linear features into a node/line structure

Attribute Transformation

Attribute Transformation is the act of restructuring the non-spatial component of an FME feature. In other words, the attributes relating to the physical geometry undergo some form of change to produce a different output.

Some examples of attribute transformation are:

  • Concatenation – joining together of two or more attributes.
  • Measurement – measuring a feature’s length or area to create a new attribute
  • ID Creation – creation of a unique ID number for a particular feature

Address1  Suite 2017

Address2  7445-132nd Street

City  Surrey

Province  British Columbia

PostCode  V3W 1J8

Concatenate  Address1+”, “+Address2+”, “+City+”, “+Province+”, “+PostCode

Output  Suite 2017, 7445-132nd Street, Surrey, British Columbia, V3W 1J8

Above: Example of attribute concatenation. Each line of the address is concatenated, along with some constants to get spaces and commas, to return a single line address.