Introducing FDO Toolbox

Jackie Ng <jackie.ng@aecsystems.com.au>

Presentation Overview

• What is FDO?• What is FDO Toolbox?• Major Features of FDO Toolbox• Demos

About Me

Software Developer for AEC Systems http://www.aecsystems.com.au

Based in Melbourne, Victoria Member of FDO Project Steering Committee MapGuide Open Source Project contributor

What is FDO?

FDO: Feature Data Objects Multi-platform geospatial data access API The “geospatial” equivalent of ODBC, ADO.net Developed by Autodesk, used in all of their

geospatial products. Open-sourced in 2006, made into an official

OSGeo project http://fdo.osgeo.org

FDO Overview

SDF SHP

FDO API

PostGISOracle

SDFProvider

SHPProvider

OracleProvider

PostGISProvider

WFSProvider

?Provider

?Others

App 1 App 2 App 4

WFS

App 3

Benefits of FDO

• A single, unified interface to access data

Access data in their native formats. No translation/conversion required!

Users don't have to understand differences in underlying data stores.

• Platform/Technology independenceAvailable on Windows and Linux

• ExtensibleCan “plug-in” new FDO providers to access more data formats.

What is FDO Toolbox?

A GUI “front-end” to the FDO API A multi-purpose geospatial data tool. Leverages the features and benefits of

FDO Written in C# (.net Framework 2.0) Open Source under LGPL

History• Development started in June 2008

• Inspiration:– Fdo2Fdo*

– Database Admin. Tools:• Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio

• MySQL Administrator

• pgAdmin

• etc

• I wanted to explore all the capabilities that FDO has to offer (quite a lot!)

* http://www.sl-king.com/Fdo2Fdo/fdo2fdo.html

The Tools in the Toolbox

Support for many different types of spatial data

Powerful data query / preview / analysis Data Store Administration Spatial Data Modeling Data Conversion / Transformation Extensibility

Data AccessOpen Source Providers

• SDF• SHP• SQLite• WFS• WMS• ArcSDE• ODBC (30+ formats)• GDAL (90+ formats)• OGR (30+ formats)• SQL Server 2008• Oracle• KML*• Informix*

Commercial Providers

• Raster (ECW, MrSID, etc)• Oracle• FME• GE Smallworld• SQL Server 2000,2005• SuperMap GIS• Others?

That's over 150+ formats (and counting)!

* Not included in the standard FDO distribution. Freely available from SL-King (http://www.sl-king.com)

Data Preview / Query

Preview attribute data in a table

Construct complex, powerful queries with the Expression Editor

Preview spatial data in a map (via SharpMap)

Has non-spatial applications (eg. A simple database viewer)

Data Manipulation

FDO Queries Saving query results to

new files CRUD (Create, Read,

Update, Delete) *

* Support varies by FDO Provider

Schema Designer

Create/Define the structure of a FDO data store

Supports Constraints * Can save/load for future

use

* Support varies by FDO Provider

Capability Aware

• Not all FDO Providers are made equal

• Some providers can do things that others can't

• FDO Toolbox is aware of such capabilities.

• Uses FDO's capability APIs

Data Conversion / Transformation

Bulk Copy Data Joins Chained tasks Express Bulk Copy (eg.

SHP to SDF)

Extensibility

FDO Toolbox was created with extensibility in mind.

Two approaches: Add-Ins, using SharpDevelop framework. Scripting (via IronPython)

FDO Toolbox

Demo

More Information

Project: http://fdotoolbox.googlecode.com FDO: http://fdo.osgeo.org fdo-users: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fdo-users My Blog: http://themapguyde.blogspot.com Email me: jackie.ng@aecsystems.com.au