As presented by Drew Burgasser of CAD Masters Abstract: The City of Palo department of utilities (CPAU) implemented Autodesk Topobase as part of their Geospatial Design and Management Project. This presentation will demonstate how FME was used to convert data from AutoCAD to Oracle for CPAU.

1. Using FME for City of Palo Alto
Autodesk® TopobaseTM Implementation
Drew Burgasser, P.E.
Vice President, CAD Masters, Inc.
April 20, 2012

2. City of Palo Alto Department of Utilities
 Only City-Owned utility in California
that operates its own utilities including
electric, fiber optic, natural gas, water,
and wastewater
 Summer 2009 – RFP – Geospatial
Design and Management Solution
Project (GDMSP)

3. Autodesk Topobase
 Autodesk® Flagship GIS Application
 Client
 Web
 Administration
 AutoCAD® frontend
 Oracle® Database Backend
 Fully Customizable

4. Why FME Desktop?
 Needed to convert original data to Oracle
Spatial (for use with Autodesk Topobase)
 AutoCAD dwg
 AutoCAD Map 3D Object Data
 Oracle
 Microsoft® Access
 SQL Server
 Easy to Use
 Ridiculously Fast
 Fun

5. Readers and Writers
 Readers (used for this project)
 Autodesk AutoCAD Map 3D Object Data
 Microsoft Access
 Oracle Spatial Object
 Oracle Non-spatial
 Writers
 Oracle Spatial Object
 Oracle Non-spatial

6. AutoCAD Map 3D to Oracle Spatial
 Challenge - All Text and Leaders had to be
related to the feature that was being labeled

7. AutoCAD Map 3D to Oracle Spatial
 Solution - NeighborFinder Transformer was
used to store the parent feature entity handle
for each text and leader feature

8. AutoCAD Map 3D to Oracle Spatial
 Challenge – Gas Valves had object extended
IDs that linked to data in a Microsoft Access
MDB. We needed to translate the Access data
in addition to the AutoCAD data.

9. AutoCAD Map 3D to Oracle Spatial
 Solution 1 – AutoCAD Map 3D Object Data
Reader extracted object data and extended
entity data attributes

10. AutoCAD Map 3D to Oracle Spatial
 Solution 2 – Joiner Transformer allowed us to
connect to another DB and retrieve attributes based
on the join ID attribute

11. Topobase Jobs
 Long Transactions using Oracle Virtual Private
Database
 Facilitates Approval Process
 Undo modifications
 Paper trail of feature edits
 Job promotion event
 Challenge - Before adding data in Oracle, we
needed to set a job by running an Oracle
function select setjob(#) from dual. How do
we do this in FME?

12. Topobase Jobs
 Solution - We could run a SQL Statement in
FME to set the job before translation:

13. Data Auditing and Cleansing
 Challenge
 Required to do several rounds of data
auditing and cleansing.
 Did not want to use the live CPAU server.
 Wanted to do the work in our office.
 Wanted to copy the data over to their Oracle
server.
 Could not export and import schemas since
their database was live.

14. Data Auditing and Cleansing
 Solution – Used FME to copy data from one Oracle
server or instance to another (over a VPN
connection nonetheless!)

15. Thank You!
 Questions?
 For more information:
 Drew Burgasser – drew@cadmasters.com
 CAD Masters, Inc.