Safe Software Extends Raster ETL Capabilities

24 June 2009, 11:52am

Vancouver, June 24, 2009 – Safe Software, the leaders in spatial ETL (extract, transform and load) and the makers of FME®, today introduced support for Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG), enhancing their raster ETL offerings in the marketplace.

FME now enables organizations to translate and convert data between BAG, a widely recognized raster-based bathymetric data exchange format, and over 225 other formats supported by FME. A non-proprietary raster-based bathymetric data exchange format, BAG was created to facilitate the processing and storage of large volume multi-beam sonar data and is commonly used by the hydrographic community.

"We are very pleased that Safe Software has responded to our request to support this format," says Matt Austin, Physical Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "This is a very important format for NOAA and now by using FME, we will be able to save large amounts of time in updating our data and making it accessible to others."

New support in FME for the BAG format includes translation to and from the format, as well as data conversion capabilities. Users can now consume data from other formats for storage in the BAG format, and push data stored in BAG out to other formats as required. Translation support for this format includes the handling of the data model's two bands – elevation and uncertainty – as well as collection of metadata from the source. Users are also able to convert BAG data, individually manipulating the format's two bands, elevation and uncertainty, as required.

"Responding to our customers' needs is of great importance to us at Safe Software," says Dale Lutz, Vice President of Software Development. "We're pleased our support for the BAG format will enable NOAA and other organizations working with this format to more easily access the data they need to use."

Safe Software introduced support for the first raster format in 2002 and FME now supports over 45 raster formats. FME's unparalleled raster manipulation capabilities provide flexible data transformation options when working with interesting multiband formats such as BAG.

FME enables users to translate data between raster and other GIS, CAD, database, 3D/BIM and web formats and manipulate it as required. Users can also integrate their raster data with disparate datasets, and distribute the combined information over the web for end user access.

About Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG)

Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG) is a non-proprietary file format developed by the Open Navigation Surface Working Group for storing and exchanging bathymetric data. For more information, visit the link below.

Safe Software and FME

Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG)

Geo: International