FME Data Inspector

FME Data Inspector is a standalone application for inspecting data.

Starting FME Data Inspector

To start the Data Inspector, locate it in the Windows start menu:

Major Components of FME Data Inspector

When FME Data Inspector opens a dataset, it looks something like this:


Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC-BY-3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC-BY-SA.

These components function the same as Visual Preview, with the following differences:

  • There is a menu bar.
  • The Graphics window is called the View window and can have multiple tabs called Views, each displaying different datasets.
  • You can open data (File > Open Dataset), which opens it in a new View, or you can add data (File > Add Dataset), which adds data to the open View.
  • A few additional tools are available, including Mark Location and Measure Distances.
NEW
The View Window is capable of showing spatial data (2D or 3D) or attribute information in a tabular format. Toolbar buttons let you switch between these views. For FME 2019.0 and newer, FME now automatically opens non-spatial data directly in the View Window, instead of the Table View Window.

Viewing Data

The FME Data Inspector provides two methods for viewing data: opening or adding.

Opening a dataset opens a new view window for it to be displayed in. Adding a dataset displays the data in the existing view window; this way multiple datasets can be viewed simultaneously.

Opening a Dataset

Datasets can be opened in the FME Data Inspector in several ways.

  • Select File > Open Dataset from the menu bar
  • Select the toolbar button Open Dataset.
  • Drag and drop a file onto any window (except the View window)
  • Open from within Workbench

All of these methods cause a dialog to open in the FME Data Inspector in which to define the dataset to view.

Adding a Dataset

Opening a dataset causes a new View tab to be created and the data displayed. To open a dataset within an existing view tab requires the use of tools to add a dataset.

  • Selecting File > Add Dataset from the menu bar
  • Selecting the toolbar button Add Dataset
  • Dragging and Dropping a file onto the view window

Windowing Tools

Once data has been opened in the FME Data Inspector, there are many tools available for altering the view.

  • Pan
  • Zoom In
  • Zoom Out
  • Zoom to a selected feature
  • Zoom to the full extent of the data

TIP
Press the Shift key on the keyboard and it will activate the zoom-in tool in the Inspector. Press the Ctrl key, which will activate the zoom-out tool. Release the key to revert to the previous tool.

This functionality allows users to quickly move between select and navigation modes at the press of a key, so there's no need to click between select and navigation tools on the menu bar or toolbar.

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