OGC Web Map Service (WMS) Reader Parameters

The URL for the WMS server. A typical URL specifying a WMS server looks like

http://www.fmeserver.com/wms

Authentication Method

Specify the authentication method to use when accessing a password-protected server.

• Basic (default) – Basic access authentication is designed to allow a client to provide credentials to a server on the assumption that the connection between them is trusted and secure. Note that any credentials passed from client to server can be easily intercepted through an insecure connection.
• Digest – Digest authentication is one of the agreed-upon methods a web server can use to negotiate credentials, such as username or password, with a user's web browser.
• NTLM – A challenge-response protocol that is used to provide compatibility with versions of Windows earlier than the Windows 2000 operating systems.
• Web Connection – Web connections provide a convenient and secure way to store and reuse previously established connection parameters. See Web Connection below.
• Single Sign-on – FME will use the credentials of the current user to authenticate the HTTP request. This authentication method currently works only on the Windows operating system.

Web Connection

Using Web Connections

FME Options: Web Connections

After you have completely specified the connection, click the Browse button to select layers for import. A connection window appears while the system compiles a table from the database. Once the layer list appears, you can select one or more layers, and then click OK to dismiss the window. The layer name(s) will appear in the layer list field in the Reader Parameters box.

When selected, instructs the WMS reader to split the selected layers into separate HTTP Get Requests. That is, if N layers are selected, then N separate HTTP GetMap requests are performed fetching N images.

Sets the background transparency for a map. When this option is checked, and the image format supports transparency (for example, PNG and GIF), the map server will send an image with transparent background.

Specifies the width in pixels for the image.

Specifies the height in pixels for the image.

Specifies the image output format as a MIME type. The output format must be one of the formats listed in the WMS capabilities document.

Parameter options – image/png

Specifies the desired coordinate system.

Default values:

• CRS:84 for WMS 1.3.0
• EPSG:4326 for WMS 1.1.0 and 1.1.1

Time value or range for map data, expressed using any of the following syntaxes:

Elevation value or range for map data, expressed using any of the following syntaxes:

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.

Coordinate systems may be extracted from input feature data sources, may come predefined with FME, or may be user-defined. FME allows different output and input coordinate systems, and performs the required coordinate conversions when necessary.

For systems that know their coordinate system, the Coordinate System field will display Read from Source and FME will read the coordinate system from the source dataset. For most other input sources, the field will display Unknown (which simply means that FME will use default values). In most cases, the default value is all you'll need to perform the translation.

You can always choose to override the defaults and choose a new coordinate system. Select More Coordinate Systems from the drop-down menu to open the Coordinate System Gallery.

Changing a Reprojection

To perform a reprojection, FME typically uses the CS-MAP reprojection engine, which includes definitions for thousands of coordinate systems, with a large variety of projections, datums, ellipsoids, and units. However, GIS applications have slightly different algorithms for reprojecting data between different coordinate systems. To ensure that the data FME writes matches exactly to your existing data, you can use the reprojection engine from a different application.

To change the reprojection engine, Select Workspace Parameters > Spatial > Reprojection Engine. In the example shown, you can select Esri (but the selection here depends on your installed applications):

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:

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.