FME 2012 Released – Powering the Flow of Spatial Data

It is with great excitement that we release FME 2012 today! With this release we have taken our spatial data transformation technology to the next level. If you have data to move, more than ever FME 2012 is the tool you need to power the flow of spatial data.

While our website has full details and we’ll be sharing more on the blog in the next 2 weeks, here are a few of my own personal highlights from FME 2012.

• Ease of Use
  At Safe there is nothing more important than user experience! With each release we strive to make all FME interfaces easier to use. While a technical tool we understand that most of our users are not programmers and we don’t fantasize about turning our users into programmers. Rather we work hard to remove the need for a user to write code in any language. This drive continues to make the FME environment more productive with each release.For our users who are programmers we also work hard to make them more productive. For example, with FME 2012 our Python technology has taken a huge step forward.
• Performance
  As you know if a new release is not faster than a previous release then we won’t ship it. It goes without saying that FME 2012 is again the fastest FME ever. Taking this to a new extreme we have added some “multi-processing” capabilities in FME 2012 so that users are able to take advantage of multi-core processing. While we don’t count this when comparing performance with FME 2011, you will find that turning this on can make a huge additional performance boost in certain situations.
• Real-Time Data Moving
  With FME 2012 we have built a new “real-time” architecture for FME Server making it the perfect tool for moving real-time data wherever it comes from. So whether you have real-time data being generated by a web application or a sensor network, FME in 2012 is ready to move that data to wherever you need it. Stewart and I will be writing more about this in upcoming blog posts, but in the meantime check out this video, or sign up our upcoming webinar on FME Server 2012.
• Better Integration, Data Push and Notification Services
  Integrating FME Server with other Web services is now easier than ever. Now with FME 2012 you can invoke FME Server data transformation capabilities through a simple “http post” mechanism.Want FME Server to consume data on the web? You can now do this by simply sending it the URL of the data. No more need to first download the data to your desktop and then upload the data to the server for transformation.

  With FME 2012 we’ve added a whole new way of getting you the data you need, with our new “data push” capability. Now you can let FME Server do the work and send you the data that is of interest to you when the data is available.

  We’ve also add an amazingly powerful Event Processing service which provides new ways for FME Server to power the flow of spatial data. You will be hearing more about this in the weeks ahead too.

  I am very excited about all of these additions and look forward to seeing how they’ll be used.

• User Community
  Recognizing that there is more to a release than product upgrades we are also working to extend our user community experience with FME 2012. In the year ahead look forward to more informative videos, webinars, online training, and a whole new user group experience that puts our users in closer contact with us and with each other.
• FME Store
  The FME Store is one part of this user community improvement enabling partners to publish and sell (or share) custom transformers and workspace solutions that they have developed. For FME 2012 this is just one step in helping our users share with other users.
• XML (and JSON)
  No release would be complete without us reducing the effort required when reading or writing XML (and JSON). With this release the XML challenge no longer has anything to do with the XML encoding and is now strictly a data modeling exercise. You will also notice that every dialog has been completely redone making them simpler, and even easier to understand.

Your Feedback on FME 2012?

I look forward to getting your feedback on FME 2012. Let me know what you like, don’t like and what you would like to see moving forward. For a full description of everything FME 2012 see the official announcement and details on what’s new and great for both FME Desktop and FME Server.

Whether we meet online or in person, I look forward to engaging with all of you.

FME 2012 World Tour and FME 2012 Contest

Later this year we will be traveling across the globe as part of the FME 2012 World Tour. Check out the 30+ dates and locations here – there’s also going to be a live stream. Also, until January 27th you can enter to win an adventure trip or other prizes like an iPad2 or PS3 by testing your knowledge of FME 2012 – you can enter here.