The document discusses how the University of Washington uses FME to manage over 1700 AutoCAD floorplan drawings by stitching them together into a seamless Esri Geodatabase. It describes the challenges of processing a large number of drawings incrementally to avoid missing any floors or rooms. The process uses FME as a subprocess within Python scripts to extract data from new or updated drawings and insert it into geodatabase versions. This allows the floorplan data to be updated automatically on an hourly basis from the AutoCAD Vault.
2. University of Washington (Seattle)
20+ million square feet of floor space
Growth: 1400 to 1700 floors in the past 3 years
Capital Projects Office contracts and manages
construction
After construction facilities are handed over to
Facilities Management
Use FME to stitch together 1700+ dwg files into a
seamless Esri Geodatabase
8. Challenges
Large number of drawings
Original Arcpy script never completed
Ran for as long as a day before …
Need to make sure that incremental update
process will never result in “missing”
floors/rooms
Processing somewhat simplified through ArcGIS
for AutoCAD
9. Logic
Windows process scans the vault
mirror every hour and looks for
new drawings
Xml config file(s) drives most of
the process
GDB versions used for transactional
update
Main function is python without
arcpy
Arcpysubprocesses
FME subprocesses
Full run completes in ~28 hours
10. Processing Logic
For each drawing
Create a version
Make a feature view
Delete existing records for layers/floor
Call FME as a subprocess to insert new data
If everything worked:
Rec and post version
Else:
Delete version
11. Later Additions
Easier Xml config
Add layers and processes
Parallel processing
Simplified script logic
Needed a lobotomy…
Graphical challenges
Self-intersections
Catwalks
Arch multi-part lines for faster display
Floor polygons
12. Trends
Simple approach for smaller campuses/new users
MSC feature classes/attributes
Geoprocessing/FME options
More sophisticated tools for advanced users and
non-MSC data/attributes
FME +
Cloud
Tribal campus networks and associated
performance