1.
FME: THE ULTIMATE MISSING LINK
AND WORKFLOW FOR BIM AND GIS AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
EMMY THAMMASINE

2.
FLIGHT PLAN
★ Me, Me, Me… and DEN
★ The Problem
★ The Solution
★ Looking Back at the Struggles
★ Q&A

3.
Live, Eat (a lot), Sleep, Breathe (BIM) Data: Extract, Transform +
Analyze
Working on the awesome Terminal Redevelopment Project (Great
Hall)
The (LONE) FME Guy:
EMMY THAMMASINE
BIM/Asset Manager, Special Projects Division

4.
Live, Eat (a lot), Sleep, Breathe (BIM) Data: Extract, Transform +
Analyze
Working on the awesome Terminal Redevelopment Project (Great
Hall)
The (LONE) FME Guy: Basically means I’m not an FME guru, but the
only one in the office to know enough to be dangerous (break it, fix it,
break it again, fix it again, yada yada!) to get results (some results)
EMMY THAMMASINE
BIM/Asset Manager, Special Projects Division

5.
The Airport Opened in 1995.. I WAS 18!
Land Size 53 Square Miles (ranked 2nd largest airport in the world)..
BIG!
Operations 35,000+ Employees and Flies to Over 180 Destinations
Revenue $1 billion (2017).. CHA-CHING!
Traffic 61 million passengers (2017).. ZOOM-ZOOM!
DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

6.
Projects 200+ Active Construction Projects
Facilities Modeled Over 18 Million S.F. (29+ Facilities) Modeled in Revit
Assets 26,000 Assets in IBM Maximo Asset Management Database
Integration Autodesk Revit, BIM 360 Field + Glue, Autodesk A360
Cloud Collaboration, ArcGIS, DEN Maps, Aconex, Unifier +
FME…………..
BIM AT DEN

7.
“PUTTING DEN
ON THE
WORLD MAP”

8.
THE BIG PICTURE: BIM TO GIS

9.
Boss:
Emmy, so we have something (a.k.a., an
issue) to discuss with you.. We have millions
of square feet of facilities already modeled in
Revit. And we have this software that we just
bought a license for; this FME thingy. It’s
supposed to help us translate BIM to GIS,
geometries and data and all. A little birdie
told us that you are the data guru! Do you
think you can do something like this for us?

10.
Boss:
Emmy, so we have something (a.k.a., an
issue) to discuss with you.. We have millions
of square feet of facilities already modeled in
Revit. And we have this software that we just
bought a license for; this FME thingy. It’s
supposed to help us translate BIM to GIS,
geometries and data and all. A little birdie
told us that you are the data guru! Do you
think you can do something like this for us?
Me:
Oh sure! I can do that. It’ll be a piece of
cake!

11.
Reality Settles In:
Holy ****!

12.
Reality Settles In:
Holy ****!
I’ve never even heard of FME!

13.
Reality Settles In:
Holy ****!
I’ve never even heard of FME!
What do I do now?

14.
THE PROBLEM
➔ DEN GIS uses outdated exported CAD As-Builts
➔ CAD exports are lines only and do not contain data
➔ Data, such as room names, numbers, location ID, etc.,
are entered manually in GIS. That’s A LOT of data for 18
million S.F. of facilities and assets. Updating all that data
is a nightmare!

15.
THE SOLUTION: BIM GIS
➔ BIM is the new standard at DEN
➔ Revit models of all DEN facilities are updated daily and
contain data critical to the operations and maintenance of
the airport
➔ IFC exported from Revit models contain geometry and
SPATIAL data!

16.
SO, WHY FME
WHEN WE HAVE OTHER RESOURCES?

17.
SO, WHY FME
WHEN WE HAVE OTHER RESOURCES?
“Well, we heard FME can do
wonders and because we
already bought it!”
:-o

18.
NOW, WHAT’S THE PLAN?

19.
WORKFLOW OVERVIEW

20.
WORKFLOW OVERVIEW

21.
WORKFLOW OVERVIEW

22.
WORKFLOW OVERVIEW

23.
WORKFLOW:
54321

24.
WORKFLOW:
MODEL REVIEWREVIT MODEL DESIGN STANDARDS MANUAL

25.
WORKFLOW:
1 2 3

26.
WORKFLOW:

27.
WORKFLOW:

28.
WORKFLOW:
CONNECT
At this point, everything is
ready to go into production
mode and all the data and
geometries connect to
DENMaps, a User-Friendly
GIS Interface made
available to all Denver City
Employees
TEST + DEBUG
The DEN GIS team tests
and debugs the data they
receive and report back to
us if there are errors.
FIX
We determine if the error
can be resolved in FME
directly or go all the way
back to Revit and repeat the
entire process from the
beginning. UGH!
01
03 02

29.
THE FINAL PRODUCT: DENMAPS

30.
After all the data have been extracted,
transformed and loaded, the final product is
DENMaps

31.
Users can select elements on the map and
get detailed information about it, such as the
area, location identifier, lease information,
and space use type.
The data and map imagery can be exported
to different formats by users for
presentations, design proposals, cost
estimation, just to name a few.

32.
THE STRUGGLES
WERE REAL

33.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!
Is the process and workflow perfect?

34.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!
Is the process and workflow perfect?
It’s not even close! But it has come a long way since 2014 and runs more
efficiently.

35.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!
Is the process and workflow perfect?
It’s not even close! But it has come a long way since 2014 and runs more
efficiently.
Was it hard to learn?

36.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!
Is the process and workflow perfect?
It’s not even close! But it has come a long way since 2014 and runs more
efficiently.
Was it hard to learn?
I wanted to give up after the first 10 minutes of opening Workbench, but I used all
the resources available to achieve my goals: FME Forum, FME Help, FME Blog
and Emailing Safe’s knowledgeable experts! I even earned some badges along the
way!

37.
BIGGEST TAKEAWAYS
IFC Export, Not RVZ Export
They both achieve similar results. For us, exporting to IFC was eons faster (maybe
not eons, but definitely faster) than exporting to RVZ
Workspace Runner
FME workspaces makes tedious tasks efficient and reduce errors. FME
Workspace Runners kicks FME Workspaces up another notch; BAM!

38.
OTHER FME TIME-SAVERS
Batch DGN to DWG/PDF conversion
Less than 30 minutes to put together an FME Workspace and converted over
1,000 DGN files to DWG and PDF, without a copy Microstation
Revit to 3D PDF
Could be done with third party software, paid or free, but why not FME?
Generates 3D PDF, but also include spatial data!

39.
WHAT’S NEXT?
FME Server
★ Automate everything we’ve developed and will develop with FME Server
★ 1st Attempt at automating in FME Server  Failed Miserably
★ Help? Anyone?

40.
And Finally,

41.
DO IT CORRECTLY
THE FIRST TIME AROUND
GOOD DATA IN,
GOOD DATA OUT
HAVE FUN WITH DATA!
MODEL EVERYTHING

42.
WE LOVE CATS

43.
WE LOVE CATS
CANINE AIRPORT THERAPY SQUAD

44.
THANK YOU!
Emmy Thammasine
emmy.thammasine@flydenver.com