FME to the Rescue Inside our Nation’s Busiest Airports Landing

Airport terminals are large and complex places that are constantly evolving to fulfill growing travel demand, diverse passenger needs, heightened security concerns, and retail revenue opportunities. Operating and maintaining these complex places requires accurate and up-to-date spatial data. The problem is that the volume of CAD, GIS, and now BIM deliverables received after construction or tenant improvements occur is greater than most airport staff can keep up with. Larger and medium hub airports also have the new challenge of meeting the requests of 3rd party application vendors to provide GeoJSON data updates that deliver airport maps to consumers via a growing variety of apps.

This presentation will demonstrate how FME is the perfect tool for overcoming this challenge, rescuing airport staff from the burden of laborious data conversion and maintenance tasks and providing reliable data to those who need (and are approved for) it. FME is a core component of what is called a Venue Management Platform. Using FME Server, we receive airport data in traditional CAD, GIS, or increasingly BIM formats. This data is checked for compliance with Interior Mapping Data Format (IMDF) and airport industry specific data requirements. The result is stored in a cloud based repository managed by an industry association and ultimately made available to those who need it via secure mapping applications, published APIs, or downloadable GeoJSON files.