Eglinton Crosstown West Extension – Leveraging FME to Automate Data Conversions
Presentation Details
Arup is providing engineering design and technical advisory services supporting procurement, coordination, and construction of the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE), a $4.7bn extension of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in Toronto.
The Eglinton Crosstown West Extension will take the Crosstown LRT another 9.2 km farther west, and includes seven stations (four underground, two elevated, one partially below-grade), a new bridge over the Humber River, and a 6.5-km tunnel. Supporting a complex multi-disciplinary design required the use of digital tools to facilitate project management and collaboration. Arup developed automated processes using FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) and FME Server to convert and publish CAD files to the project webviewer on a daily schedule as they were updated.
Using these processes, up-to-date design information is always available to view, analyze, and monitor the progress of the project in a single web mapping application for the project team, client, and stakeholders. The FME automation simplified an update process that required several software and manual intervention, ensuring fast, efficient, and reliable data downloads and conversions were handled autonomously.
Additionally, FME provided the ability to validate information and flag any CAD files that did not follow data standards outlined in the project, triggering an automatic email that stopped the conversion process and notified the developer. This helped uncover and resolve issues with design files before shared with the broader team.
Overall, FME has automated an otherwise manually exhausting ETL (extract, transform, load) process to accurately maintain and upkeep data, ultimately saving a significant amount of time and improving communication across multiple software platforms and within a multi-disciplinary design team