Esri Geodatabase (XML Workspace Document) Reader Parameters

Tables

Click this button to select tables for export. You must have a personal database to browse.

After you click the Browse button, a loading window appears while the system compiles a table list from the database.

Once the table list appears, you can select one or more tables, and then click the OK button to dismiss the window. The table name(s) will appear in the table list field in the Reader Parameters box.

Spatial Data Only

Specifies whether to only translate features that contain some kind of geometry.

Resolve Domains

Specifies whether or not to resolve the domain code found in feature classes and tables into the domain value.

This means that when an attribute of a feature has a coded value domain associated with it, another attribute will also be added that represents the textual description of the coded attribute. The new attribute will be <attribute-name>_resolved, where <attribute-name> is the name of the attribute containing the code.

Resolve Subtypes

Specifies whether or not to resolve the subtype field values found on feature classes and tables into the name of the actual subtype.

Note  You can speed up translations involving the reader by not resolving subtypes and coded value domains. These operations add extra processing to each row of tables and feature classes that contain subtypes or coded value domains.

Ignore Network Info

Specifies whether to read the network portion of network features. When checked, junctions will be read as points (geodb_point) and edges will be read as lines (geodb_polyline). Additionally, none of the network related attribution will be supplied on the features. Checking this option speeds up reading of network features significantly.

Ignore Relationship Info

Determines whether to read relationship features present in a source dataset. When this parameter is checked, feature types containing simple relationships will be ignored, and feature types containing attributed relationships will be treated as non-spatial tables. When this parameter is unchecked, relationships will be read normally as either simple or attributed. The speed of reading features is vastly improved if relationships are ignored.

Split Complex Edges

Determines whether complex edge features should be split. When split, complex edge features are read at the element level rather than the feature level. The element level represents the logical view of the geometric network. As a result, no network connectivity information is lost.

When split, each FME feature stores the following attributes:

Attribute Name

Contents

geodb_element_id

The element ID of the logical edge element.

geodb_element_index

An attribute created and assigned by FME. It is used to order the edge elements within a complex feature.

The index begins at 0, not 1.

geodb_from_junction_element_id

The junction element ID that corresponds to the from endpoint.

Note  This is the from endpoint of the edge element, not the edge feature.

geodb_to_junction_element_id

The junction element ID that corresponds to the to endpoint.

Note  This is the to endpoint of the edge element, not the edge feature.

The following complex edge attributes are not present on the FME feature: geodb_junction_feature_count and geodb_edge_element_count. Even though elements are being read, the geodb_type of each feature is still geodb_complex_edge.

If an error occurs when retrieving the geometry for an edge element, then the geometry is skipped but the network attributes are still read.

Note   This parameter is not valid when reading relationship classes.

Split Multi-Part Annotations

Specifies whether or not to split multi-part annotations into separate features for each "element" when reading.

If checked, a single feature for each element (usually a word) in a multi-part annotation will be produced on reading, resulting in feature-specific attributes such as angle and text position being stored according to the location of each element.

If left unchecked, multi-part annotations will be read normally, as a single feature storing a single set of attributes describing the positioning of the text.

  • Features – The reader outputs features stored within tables.

  • Metadata – Provides the ability to read table-level metadata. In this mode, the reader outputs one feature per feature type. The geodb_type of the feature is geodb_metadata and the entire XML metadata document belonging to the Geodatabase table is found in the attribute geodb_metadata_string.

Where applicable, the following attributes are also supplied:

Attribute

Description

fme_feature_identifier

The name of the object ID field.

fme_contains_spatial_column

Indicates whether the table has a geometry column (feature class).

fme_geometry{0}

The types of geometry the feature class contains.

fme_dimension

Indicates whether the feature class is 2D or 3D.

If the table is a feature class, the geometry of the metadata feature returned is a polygon, representing the extents of the feature class, and the coordinate system of the feature class is also set on the feature.

When reading metadata, the feature type parameters are used to determine which feature types should have metadata read from them.

Use this parameter to expose Format Attributes in FME Workbench when you create a workspace:

  • In a dynamic scenario, it means these attributes can be passed to the output dataset at runtime.
  • In a non-dynamic scenario, this parameter allows you to expose additional attributes on multiple feature types. Click the browse button to view the available format attributes (which are different for each format) for the reader.
 

This parameter controls how Geodatabase aliases are used.

  • None – Aliases are ignored.
  • Replace Attribute Names with Aliases – (only applicable when adding a Reader) Attributes on feature types will be named for their aliases rather than their official names. A geodb_feature_class_alias attribute will be included on each feature. Use this mode when the target format should create feature types using the aliases as attribute names.
  • Expose Aliases as Metadata Attributes – For each attribute read, a second <name>_alias attribute will be added that stores the alias for the attribute in question. A geodb_feature_class_alias attribute will also be included on each feature. Use this mode when the target format is Geodatabase and the aliases should be preserved during feature class and table creation.

A search envelope (also known as a bounding box) is a rectangular area that defines a geographic area. In FME, the easiest way to define a search envelope is to use search envelope parameters.

Defining a search envelope is the most efficient method of selecting an area of interest because FME will read only the data that is necessary – it does not have to read an entire dataset. Search Envelope parameters apply to both vector and raster datasets and can be particularly efficient if the source format has a spatial index.

Most FME readers have parameters to define the search envelope of data that is being read:

Screenshot with blank search envelope min and max x and y parameters

The parameters include the x and y coordinates of the bounding box as well as a parameter that defines the coordinate system.

How to Define the Bounding Box

Using the minimum and maximum x and y parameters, define a bounding box that will be used to filter the input features. Only features that intersect with the bounding box are returned. Note that the bounding box intersection is not a full geometry intersection (based on spatial relationships) that would be returned by a transformer like the SpatialFilter.

Note  If all four coordinates of the search envelope are left at 0, the search envelope will be disabled even if this option is checked.

Search Envelope Coordinate System

Specifies the coordinate system of the search envelope if it is different than the coordinate system of the data. The coordinate system associated with the data to be read must always be set if this parameter is set.

If this parameter is set, the minimum and maximum points of the search envelope are reprojected from the Search Envelope Coordinate System to the reader’s coordinate system prior to applying the envelope.

Clip to Search Envelope

The underlying function for Use Search Envelope is an intersection; however, when Clip to Search Envelope is checked, a clipping operation is also performed.

  • When left unchecked (set to No), features that overlap the boundary will be included in their full (unclipped) form.
  • When checked (set to Yes), this option instructs FME to clip features to the exact envelope boundary. FME removes any portions of imported features being read that are outside the search envelope.

Clip to Search Envelope: No

Clip to Search Envelope: Yes

Any features that cross the search envelope boundary will be read, including the portion that lies outside of the boundary.

Any features that cross the search envelope boundary will be clipped at the boundary, and only the portion that lies inside the boundary will be read.

The search envelope includes the bounding box and the extent of the raster.

The search envelope includes only the area within the bounding box.

The raster size will still match the bounding box, but the area without data will be filled with Nodata values to represent the absence of data, if the source raster has them.

Raster Nodata may be a single value across all bands, a single value per band, or a separate alpha or transparency band that indicates the lack of data values (this is more common in images than other types of rasters).

Split Complex Annotations

Geodatabase annotations offer a rich set of options to place text which are often not supported or do not directly translate to other formats. By enabling this option, richer text representations are broken into simpler representations that preserve text style and placement.

To maintain accurate placement, text elements are split into separate features on line breaks, format changes, irregular character spacing, and on any curves. This option also implies that multi-part annotations will be split (see the Split Multi-Part Annotations parameter above).

Each resulting feature will have a rotation angle and a point representing the bottom left corner of the text. All the text will be bottom, left-justified without an X or Y offset.

Each feature will contain all the attributes of the original text element including all the Geodatabase format attributes. The annotation related format attributes represent the current part and not the original text element. An additional geodb_text_part_count format attribute is added to indicate the part index of the original text element.

Cache Multipatch Textures

Specify the type of memory optimizations that are used when reading multipatches with textures. The default behavior to cache texture should be used in most scenarios as it will result in better performance. If, however, memory is an issue and there are many multipatch features with associated texture materials (like the buildings of a city), then consider disabling caching to improve memory usage.

  • Yes (default) – Textures will be stored in local texture caches and no effort will be made to clean them. This results in better performance but higher memory usage over time.
  • No – Extra effort will be made to clear texture caches. This may result in slower performance.

Check for Simple Geometry

Specifies whether a check should be performed on features read from Geodatabase to determine if they are simple.

Note  This is an expensive check, and it impacts reader performance.

If this parameter is set to Yes, the format attribute geodb_feature_is_simple is set to Yes if the geometry is simple, and No if it is not.

In some programs (for example, ArcGIS Pro), GlobalID and GUID attributes contain braces:

When set to Yes, this parameter removes the braces from the GlobalID and GUID attributes for compatibility with programs where these attributes do not contain braces.

The default is No.

Merge Feature Linked Annotations

Specifies whether feature-linked annotations should have their text, angle, and position properties merged as attributes onto the main feature to which they are linked, when reading.

  • Yes: This will produce a list attribute (as detailed in Annotations), with all annotation attributes set. The annotation table(s) does not need to be explicitly read.
  • No: Feature-linked annotations will be read as annotations when encountered.