The SDE reader and writer modules provide the FME with the ability to store data in and retrieve data from Esri’s SDE.
The SDE modules deliver the following capabilities.
- Programmatic Table Creation: Tables need not be created before a data import operation. All table creation details are handled by the FME.
- Programmatic Index Creation: Non-spatial column indices can be specified within FME mapping files. These indices are used to enhance the performance of the non-spatial component of searches.
- Programmatic Spatial Column and Attribute Verification: When loading data into an existing spatial database, the FME verifies that the table definitions specified in the mapping file match the existing RDBMS definitions.
- Versioning Support: FME enables data to be read from a particular version of an SDE database, and also allows data to be written to a specific version of an SDE database.
- Transaction Support: Transactions are fully supported enabling a partially complete load operation to be resumed later, without the loss of or duplication of data.
- Attribute Query Support: SQL WHERE clauses can be specified to limit the data being exported.
- Multi-Table Query Support: The queries may combine multiple RDBMS tables thereby exploiting the full SQL capabilities of the underlying RDBMS.
- Multiple SDE Connections: The FME is capable of having multiple SDE connections open to the same or different SDE databases. This may be used for selective replication between different SDE sites, for moving data from a preparation SDE to a production SDE, or for building result sets of features from multiple SDE databases.
- Spatial Query Support: FME exploits the spatial query capabilities of the SDE.
- Non-Spatial Table Support: Any table can be read or written to an SDE database with FME whether or not it is spatially enabled. For example, if your SDE uses Oracle then FME can be used to read, write, or create regular Oracle tables.
- Rejected Features’ Pipeline: Features whose geometry is rejected by SDE can be sent through an FME Pipeline and modified so that they can be given a second opportunity to be inserted into SDE.
- Geodatabase Reading/Writing Support: Features can be read from or written to an existing feature class located on an Enterprise Geodatabase.
- Unicode Support: FME can read from and write to text fields encoded in UTF-16.
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Fully Automatic Import and Export: FME’s SDE support provides fully automated import and export of data through the FME’s Graphical User Interface (GUI). This is ideal for quick data imports or quick data exports.
Tip: The query support enables the data export operation to be highly focused, thereby reducing the amount of data that is exported.
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Raster Support: Raster reading and writing can be done through FME, and includes support for multiple bands, NoData values, mosaicking, compression and pyramiding as well as storage of data in either raster maps or raster catalogs.
Note: Nodata values in ArcSDE raster tables are stored as locations rather than explicit values. FME maps these nodata locations in the raster to a single, unused value within the data range using statistics calculated on the raster band(s). Therefore, in order to retrieve NoData values from a raster table, statistics must be calculated prior to reading from it. This can be done either through the FME ArcSDE raster writer by setting the statistics option to ‘AUTO’, or by manually calculating statistics on the raster after it has been written using ArcGIS applications or command line tools.
The SDE modules within FME are designed to work with other SDE products. For example, a user with a simple GUI search engine can easily identify all features satisfying a complicated query, then use FME with the SDE reader module to process these features.