FME in “border operations” at the Austrian Federal Forests
Boundary stones indicate the ownership rights of the Austrian Federal Forests.
Photo database of boundary stones including factual data of the Austrian Federal Forests
FME server job: "Binary Decoder and Raster Replacer"
The "HTTPCaller" integrated in FME checks whether the photo in question is actually downloaded from the memory.
The Austrian Federal Forests document boundary stones with photos and integrate them into their database system using FME.
Since 2020, the external borders of the Austrian Federal Forests have been recorded on mobile devices using a specially developed app. In addition to descriptive data, up to three documentation photos are taken per boundary stone. The app synchronizes the technical data and images and, in a first step, they are stored in a central PostGIS database via a geoserver.
FME Flow jobs
FME flow is then used in the backend for preparation and further processing. The core process is reading the base64 strings from the database and converting them into jpgs using the FME BinaryDecoder in combination with the RasterReplacer. In this workflow, the photos are distinctively named and stored correctly at the same time. The finished images are periodically picked up from this working directory by another FME Flow job and uploaded to an azure storage.
Data validation
In addition to these core processes, a check job also runs on FME Flow at longer intervals, which uses an “HTTPCaller” transformer to check whether the photo in question can actually be downloaded from memory and whether it may need to be corrected.
Create reports
Peter Fürst works in the area of information technology at the Federal Forests and names other applications of FME:
“In addition to these automated, periodic processing and quality assurance processes, we also provide workflows on FME Flow with which end users can generate reports in the form of Excel lists or HTML pages if necessary.”
The “FME GeometryPicker” was used here for the first time with an ÖBf-owned WMTS operating map in the front end, which is executed from an FME Flow app. In total, this process chain has already processed more than 100,000 maintenance entries and more than 140,000 photos in two years.
Fürst explains the word play “border operations”:
“FME Flow works at the limit, but is still far from being at the limit itself. In the near future, this approach will be used in our company for a similar recording process in the real estate sector.”
Pictures on the left: The picture database of the boundary stones of the Austrian Federal Forests, which are processed automatically with the help of FME server jobs.
