FME Transformers: 2026.3

Categories
Data Quality

Data Quality

Filters and Joins

Filters and Joins

Spatial Analysis

Spatial Analysis

Related Transformers
AreaOnAreaOverlayer
Bufferer
Clipper
Intersector
LineOnAreaOverlayer
LineOnLineOverlayer
NeighborFinder
PointOnAreaOverlayer
PointOnLineOverlayer
PointOnPointOverlayer
SpatialFilter
TopologyBuilder
Categories
Data Quality

Data Quality

Filters and Joins

Filters and Joins

Spatial Analysis

Spatial Analysis

Related Transformers
AreaOnAreaOverlayer
Bufferer
Clipper
Intersector
LineOnAreaOverlayer
LineOnLineOverlayer
NeighborFinder
PointOnAreaOverlayer
PointOnLineOverlayer
PointOnPointOverlayer
SpatialFilter
TopologyBuilder

SpatialRelator

Identifies what types of spatial relationships exist between features.

Jump to Configuration

Typical Uses

  • Testing for specific spatial relationships, adding results as attribute values for use elsewhere
  • Performing a spatial join to transfer attributes from one feature to another based on their spatial relationship

How does it work?

The SpatialRelator receives two sets of features (points, lines, areas, or text):

  • Requestor: Features of interest, to be tested against Suppliers. These features will be output with their test results.
  • Supplier: Features to compare to Requestors. These features are not output - they are discarded after use.

Features can be tested for any of these spatial relationships:

  • Requestor OGC-Intersects Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Equals Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Touches Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Contains Supplier
  • Requestor is OGC-Within Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Crosses Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Overlaps Supplier

Aggregate geometries are not supported by all tests. 9-character masks may also be used- see Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Matrix.

Attributes may be acquired from Suppliers. Test results, including spatial relationship type and optional attributes, may be added as a list attribute.

All Output features receive a count of matched Suppliers.

Examples

In this example, we compare a set of line features (bike paths) with polygons representing city parks. The bike paths are the Requestor - the features we want information about - and the parks are the Supplier that they will be compared to. Only bike paths with added attributes will be output - the parks will be discarded after they have been used to perform the spatial analysis.

In the SpatialRelator parameters dialog, we make the following selections:

Spatial Predicates to Test: for this case, we will select the spatial relationships we are interested in:

Generate List: generating a list is the default choice, and supports adding attributes for multiple matches. Under Add to List, we choose Selected Attributes, and then select DogPark and ParkName:

Looking at the results in the FME Data Inspector, with the Parks layer shown for reference, we can see the selected bike path has a _related_candidates attribute showing how many park features it matched.

It crosses from one park into another, and so shows two entries for INTERSECTS in its _relationships list attribute.

The geometry of the features has not been altered.

Usage Notes

  • See Spatial Relations Defined for more information on spatial predicates and an illustration of spatial relationships.
  • Spatial relations are based on the OGC specification and so are undefined for geometries that are not OGC valid.
  • Aggregates are accepted by a subset of predicates, but should be used with care. See Spatial Relations Defined for more information.

Choosing a Spatial Transformer

Many transformers can assess spatial relationships and perform spatial joins - analyzing topology, merging attributes, and sometimes modifying geometry. Generally, choosing the one that is most specific to the task you need to accomplish will provide the optimal performance results. If there is more than one way to do it (which is frequently the case), time spent on performance testing alternate methods may be worthwhile.

To correctly analyze spatial relationships, all features should be in the same coordinate system. The Reprojector may be useful for reprojecting features within the workspace.

Transformer

Can Merge Attributes

Alters Geometry

Counts Related Features

Creates List

Supported Types*

Recommended For
SpatialFilter Yes No No No
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Testing for the existence of spatial relationships between two sets of features, and routing them according to whether they pass or fail the test(s).
SpatialRelator Yes No Yes Yes
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Identifying the nature of spatial relationships between two sets of features.
AreaOnAreaOverlayer Yes Yes Yes Yes
  • Area
  • Finding polygon overlaps and extracting them into new geometry.
LineOnAreaOverlayer Yes Yes Yes Yes
  • Curve and Area
  • Finding intersections between lines and polygons, splitting either where they intersect.
LineOnLineOverlayer Yes Yes Yes Yes
  • Curve
  • Finding intersections between line features, splitting them, and generating new line geometry as well as points representing the intersections.
PointOnAreaOverlayer Yes No Yes Yes
  • Point and Area
  • Text and Area
  • Identifying points that fall within polygons, and merging attributes between them
PointOnLineOverlayer Yes Yes Yes Yes
  • Point and Curve
  • Text and Curve
  • Identifying where points fall on lines, and splitting the lines into new geometry.
PointOnPointOverlayer Yes No Yes Yes
  • Point
  • Text
  • Identifying points in the same location (within a tolerance), and merging attributes between them.
Intersector Yes Yes Yes Yes
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Finding intersections between all input features, regardless of geometry (including self-intersections), splitting features, and creating new geometry.
Clipper Yes Yes No No
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Surface
  • Solids
  • Raster
  • Point Cloud
  • Comparing features against a set of Clipper features, and splitting the features at or along the Clipper boundaries. Outputs both new and untouched geometry, identified as either Inside or Outside the Clipper.
NeighborFinder Yes In some cases No Yes
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Identifying the nearest other feature(s) to each feature being considered, either in another set of features or within the same feature set.
TopologyBuilder Yes Yes No Yes
  • Point
  • Text
  • Curve
  • Area
  • Analyzing spatial relationships between features to compute topology, splitting features and creating new geometry representing topologically significant nodes, edges, and faces, with associated attributes.

* Note that Curve includes Lines, Arcs, and Paths. Area includes Polygons, Donuts, and Ellipses.

Spatial analysis can be processing-intensive, particularly when a large number of features are involved. If you would like to tune the performance of your workspace, this is a good place to start.

When there are multiple ways to configure a workspace to reach the same goal, it is often best to choose the transformer most specifically suited to your task.

If performance is an issue in your workspace, look for alternative methods, guided by geometry.

Configuration

Input Ports

Point, line, area, or text features that will be tested against Supplier features.

Point, line, area, or text features that Requestors are tested against. These features are not output.

Output Ports

Requestor features with added test results and attributes as specified in parameters.

Requestor and Supplier features with invalid geometries will be rejected and output via this port. If predicates are provided via an attribute, Supplier features with no or invalid predicates will also be output via this port.

Rejected features will have an fme_rejection_code attribute with one of the following values:

INVALID_BASE_GEOMETRY_NOT_OGC_VALID

INVALID_BASE_GEOMETRY_TYPE

INVALID_BASE_GEOMETRY_VERTICES

INVALID_CANDIDATE_GEOMETRY_NOT_OGC_VALID

INVALID_CANDIDATE_GEOMETRY_TYPE

INVALID_CANDIDATE_GEOMETRY_VERTICES

INVALID_CANDIDATE_PARAMETER_PREDICATE

INVALID_GEOMETRY_TYPE

MISSING_CANDIDATE_PARAMETER_PREDICATE

Rejected Feature Handling: can be set to either terminate the translation or continue running when it encounters a rejected feature. This setting is available both as a default FME option and as a workspace parameter.

Parameters

Group By

This parameter is used to indicate that only Requestors and Suppliers that have the same value for specified attributes should be compared. Both the Requestors and Suppliers must having matching attribute names and values.

Complete Groups

Select the point in processing at which groups are processed:

When All Features Received

This is the default behavior. Processing will only occur in this transformer once all input is present.

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 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 When All Features Received 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.

Support Mode

Select an option between supporting more geometry types or more predicates:

  • Support Aggregates – Multi and aggregate geometry are supported.
    • Predicates supported are OGC-Contains, OGC-Equals, OGC-Intersects, OGC-Touches, OGC-Within.
    • Predicates not supported are OGC-Overlaps and OGC-Crosses.
    • 9-character masks representing Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Matrices are not supported.
  • Support All Predicates – Multi and aggregate geometry are not supported. All predicates described in Spatial Relations Defined are supported, except disjoint.

Spatial Predicates to Test

Select one or more tests to perform:

  • Requestor OGC-Intersects Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Equals Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Touches Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Contains Supplier
  • Requestor is OGC-Within Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Crosses Supplier
  • Requestor OGC-Overlaps Supplier

9-Character Masks

When Support Mode is Support All Predicates, you may test relationships using 9-character masks - a Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Matrix.

Note that in order to use these masks with the SpatialRelator, you must assign them to an attribute on the Supplier features, and include the value of that attribute in the Tests to Perform clause (you cannot specify them directly).

Multiple predicates may be specified in one attribute by separating them with a space.

Note that this transformer does not allow a matrix representing a disjoint relationship to be used. This includes any matrix that has F or * in all of the four top-left elements. To find features that are disjoint to another feature, use a SpatialFilter.

For more information about predicates, see Spatial Relations Defined.

Attributes that Must Differ

(Optional) Specify any attributes that must have differing values before a match is declared.

Curve Boundary Rule

Select the rule to apply to curve geometries:

  • Default Rule (default): Any curve endpoints that occur an odd number of times in the geometry as a whole will be considered its boundary – that is, a linear loop (a line whose start point equals its endpoint) will not have any boundary.
  • Curve Boundary Includes All Endpoints: The curve's boundary is the set of all its endpoints.

Calculate Cardinality of Intersections

Select an option:

  • Yes: For each Supplier that matches a Requestor, three attributes will be added to the corresponding list entry: card_point, card_line, and card_area. These count the number of points, lines, and areas that comprise the intersection of the Requestor and Supplier. A point is counted if two polygons touch at a vertex, a line is counted if they touch at an edge, and an area is counted if they overlap.
  • No (default): Do nothing.

Merge Attributes

When enabled, every Requestor that matches a Supplier receives that supplier feature's attributes.

Accumulation Mode

Select a mode:

  • Merge Supplier: The Requestor retains all of its own un-conflicted attributes and acquires any un-conflicted Supplier attributes . Any conflicted attributes are handled according to Conflict Resolution.
  • Prefix Supplier: The Requestor retains all of its own attributes and acquires all Supplier attributes, their names prefixed according to Prefix.
  • Replace with Single Supplier: The Requestor has all of its attributes removed, except geometry attributes that start with fme_, and acquires all Supplier attributes.

Conflict Resolution

When Accumulation Mode is Merge Supplier, select a method of handling conflicted attributes:

  • Use Requestor : If a conflict occurs, the Requestor feature values are retained.
  • Use Supplier : If a conflict occurs, the values of the Supplier feature overwrite the original.

Prefix

When Accumulation Mode is Prefix Supplier, provide a string to prepend to Supplier attribute names.

Generate List

When enabled, a list attribute is added to Output features with test results, including spatial relationship type and optional Supplier attributes.

The list contains the tested predicate's DE9IM representation and name.

<LIST_NAME>{i}.de9im = [DE9IM string]
<LIST_NAME>{i}.pass{0} = [true PREDICATE 1]
<LIST_NAME>{i}.pass{1} = [true PREDICATE 2]
...
<LIST_NAME>{i}.pass{n} = [true PREDICATE n+1]

List Name

Provide a name for the list attribute.

Add To List

Select an option for including Supplier attributes in the list: 

  • All Attributes: All Supplier attributes will be added.
  • Selected Attributes: Specified attributes will be added.

Selected Attributes

When Add To List is Selected Attributes, specify which (if any) Supplier attributes to include.

Note  List attributes are not accessible from the output schema in FME Workbench until they are exposed with an AttributeExposer or processed with a transformer that operates on them, such as a ListExploder or ListConcatenator.

Related Suppliers Count

Name the attribute to contain the number of Suppliers with which the Requestor had at least one true relationship.

Editing Transformer Parameters

Transformer parameters can be set by directly entering values, using expressions, or referencing other elements in the workspace such as attribute values or user parameters. Various editors and context menus are available to assist. To see what is available, click beside the applicable parameter.

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.

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.

Text Editor

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.

Arithmetic Editor

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.

String Functions

These functions manipulate and format strings.

Special Characters

 A set of control characters is available in the Text Editor.

Math Functions

Math functions are available in both editors.
Date/Time Functions Date and time functions are available in the Text Editor.

Math Operators

These operators are available in the Arithmetic Editor.

FME Feature Functions

These return primarily feature-specific values.

FME Parameters

FME and workspace-specific parameters may be used.
Creating and Modifying User Parameters Create your own editable parameters.

Table Tools

Transformers with table-style parameters have additional tools for populating and manipulating values.

Row Reordering

Enabled once you have clicked on a row item. Choices include:

  • Add a row
  • Remove a row
  • Move current row up one
  • Move current row down one
  • Move current row to top
  • Move current row to bottom

Cut, Copy, and Paste

Enabled once you have clicked on a row item. Choices include:

  • Cut a row - delete and copy to clipboard
  • Copy a row to the clipboard
  • Paste a row from the clipboard

Cut, copy, and paste may be used within a transformer, or between transformers.

Filter

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

Import populates the table with a set of new attributes read from a dataset. Specific application varies between transformers.

Reset/Refresh

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.

For more information, see Transformer Parameter Menu Options.

Reference

Processing Behavior

Group-Based

Feature Holding

Yes
Dependencies  
Aliases  
History  

FME Online Resources

The FME Community and Support Center Knowledge Base have a wealth of information, including active forums with 35,000+ members and thousands of articles.

Search for all results about the SpatialRelator on the FME Community.

 

Examples may contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver, Open Government Licence - British Columbia, and/or Open Government Licence – Canada.