SurfaceDraper
Constructs a Delaunay triangulation based on input points and breaklines. Input drape features will be overlaid onto the surface model, and output as draped features.
Input Ports
These input features may be 2D or 3D. Other than points, lines and area geometries, they may also be raster, point cloud, and aggregate geometries.
2D features will be forced to 3D by adding a z value of 0. In most cases, all points extracted from this port will be found in the vertex pool of the underlying surface model. A minimum of 3 unique points are required to construct a surface model. Points with duplicate x and y values will be dropped.
These input features may be 2D or 3D, and may reside inside an aggregate structure.
2D features will be forced to 3D by adding a z value of 0. Breakline edges will be found in the edge pool of the underlying surface model. Sometimes, a breakline edge will be split up to allow an optimal triangulation of the surface model. Points with duplicate x and y values will be dropped.
These input features may be 2D or 3D. If they are 3D, their z values will be overwritten. Features input through this port are output via the DrapedFeatures output port with their z values set to interpolated values on the underlying surface model.
Output Ports
This output port produces features input through the DrapeFeatures port, with their z values set to interpolated values on the underlying surface model.
Parameters
Transformer
This parameter allows groups to be formed by attribute values. Zero or more attributes may be specified.
Input features with the same attribute values are placed into the same group. The transformer then operates independently on each group of input features.
If this parameter is left blank, the transformer will treat the entire set of input features as one group.
Process At End (Blocking): This is the default behavior. Processing will only occur in this transformer once all input is present.
Process When Group Changes (Advanced): This transformer will process input groups in order. Changes of the value of the Group By parameter on the input stream will trigger processing on the currently accumulating group. This may improve overall speed (particularly with multiple, equally-sized groups), but could cause undesired behavior if input groups are not truly ordered.
There are two typical reasons for using Process When Group Changes (Advanced) . The first is incoming data that is intended to be processed in groups (and is already so ordered). In this case, the structure dictates Group By usage - not performance considerations.
The second possible reason is potential performance gains.
Performance gains are most likely when the data is already sorted (or read using a SQL ORDER BY statement) since less work is required of FME. If the data needs ordering, it can be sorted in the workspace (though the added processing overhead may negate any gains).
Sorting becomes more difficult according to the number of data streams. Multiple streams of data could be almost impossible to sort into the correct order, since all features matching a Group By value need to arrive before any features (of any feature type or dataset) belonging to the next group. In this case, using Group By with Process At End (Blocking) may be the equivalent and simpler approach.
Note: Multiple feature types and features from multiple datasets will not generally naturally occur in the correct order.
As with many scenarios, testing different approaches in your workspace with your data is the only definitive way to identify performance gains.
Parameters
This parameter is used to determine which input points to add to the surface model as vertices. Specifying a value of 0 turns off vertex filtering.
Tip: A larger value will speed up surface model construction. The larger the value, the more input points will be filtered out. For input files with millions – or even billions – of points, it becomes essential to increase this value.
When a positive value for surface tolerance is specified, it works as follows. For each vertex that is being added to the model:
- If the x,y location is outside the 2D convex hull of the existing surface model, it is added to the model.
- If the x,y location is inside the 2D convex hull of the existing surface model:
- The difference between the z value from the existing surface model and the z value of the vertex is calculated.
- This difference is compared to the surface model tolerance.
- The vertex is only added to the surface model if the difference is greater than the surface tolerance; otherwise, the vertex is discarded.
This parameter controls whether input DrapeFeatures will retain its vertex count, or be modified to adhere to the underlying surface model:
- If Drape Method is set to VERTEX, the input feature will be output with the same number of vertices, with z values set on each vertex. The z values are interpolated from the underlying surface model.
- If Drape Method is set to MODEL, the feature will have other vertices added to more closely follow the underlying surface model. For example, if an input DrapeFeature falls outside the underlying surface model, it will gain additional vertices where the DrapeFeature crosses the boundaries of the surface model.
Note: Note: In general, MODEL produces more detailed results than VERTEX, but may require significantly more processing time to generate draped features.
This parameter is used for the output ports DEMPoints and DEMRaster when these output ports exist on the transformer. It is also used if DrapeFeatures are input to the model.
- AUTO: The transformer will calculate each output point automatically. The PLANAR method is used if the output point is within a surface triangle in xy and the CONSTANT method is used otherwise.
- PLANAR: Barycentric interpolation is used to determine the z value for each output point. If an output point is outside the 2D convex hull of the surface model, the output z value will be set to NaN (Not a Number).
- CONSTANT: The z value of each output point is set to the z value of the closest vertex in the underlying model.
This parameter controls whether input DrapeFeatures with Z values will be offset or have Z values replaced:
- If Existing Elevation is set to ‘Replace Z’, the input feature will be output with Z values that are interpolated from the underlying surface model.
- If Existing Elevation is set to ‘Offset Z’ and the input feature had Z values, each Z value will be offset by the interpolated Z value from the underlying surface model. For example, if the surface model represents the difference between two elevation models, this mode will allow vector features to be updated accordingly.
Example
Editing Transformer Parameters
Using a set of menu options, transformer parameters can be assigned by referencing other elements in the workspace. More advanced functions, such as an advanced editor and an arithmetic editor, are also available in some transformers. To access a menu of these options, click beside the applicable parameter. For more information, see Transformer Parameter Menu Options.
Defining Values
There are several ways to define a value for use in a Transformer. The simplest is to simply type in a value or string, which can include functions of various types such as attribute references, math and string functions, and workspace parameters. There are a number of tools and shortcuts that can assist in constructing values, generally available from the drop-down context menu adjacent to the value field.
Using the Text Editor
The Text Editor provides a convenient way to construct text strings (including regular expressions) from various data sources, such as attributes, parameters, and constants, where the result is used directly inside a parameter.
Using the Arithmetic Editor
The Arithmetic Editor provides a convenient way to construct math expressions from various data sources, such as attributes, parameters, and feature functions, where the result is used directly inside a parameter.
Conditional Values
Set values depending on one or more test conditions that either pass or fail.
Parameter Condition Definition Dialog
Content
Expressions and strings can include a number of functions, characters, parameters, and more.
When setting values - whether entered directly in a parameter or constructed using one of the editors - strings and expressions containing String, Math, Date/Time or FME Feature Functions will have those functions evaluated. Therefore, the names of these functions (in the form @<function_name>) should not be used as literal string values.
These functions manipulate and format strings. | |
Special Characters |
A set of control characters is available in the Text Editor. |
Math functions are available in both editors. | |
Date/Time Functions | Date and time functions are available in the Text Editor. |
These operators are available in the Arithmetic Editor. | |
These return primarily feature-specific values. | |
FME and workspace-specific parameters may be used. | |
Creating and Modifying User Parameters | Create your own editable parameters. |
Dialog Options - Tables
Transformers with table-style parameters have additional tools for populating and manipulating values.
Row Reordering
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Enabled once you have clicked on a row item. Choices include:
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Cut, Copy, and Paste
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Enabled once you have clicked on a row item. Choices include:
Cut, copy, and paste may be used within a transformer, or between transformers. |
Filter
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Start typing a string, and the matrix will only display rows matching those characters. Searches all columns. This only affects the display of attributes within the transformer - it does not alter which attributes are output. |
Import
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Import populates the table with a set of new attributes read from a dataset. Specific application varies between transformers. |
Reset/Refresh
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Generally resets the table to its initial state, and may provide additional options to remove invalid entries. Behavior varies between transformers. |
Note: Not all tools are available in all transformers.
FME Licensing Level
FME Professional edition and above
FME Community
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Keywords: pointcloud