This sample workbench shows how to pull driving directions from Google Maps and write out the result to KML using FME. The from and to addresses are currently filled with an AttributeCreator, but you could also set this up with an external list of addresses and have the output fanout.



The addresses are being treated for inclusion in a HTTP string. Specifically, spaces are replaced with + signs. Then the full HTTP string is fired off through an HTTPFetcher. The result is KML data that's being streamed back to FME, which reads it as a single feature with one attribute: _url_contents

Since Google Earth doesn't like this particular structure (entire KML file stuffed into a single line), we need to pull it apart using an AttributeSplitter, splitting on the < character. In the end, these characters are placed back and everything is written to a CSV output. This is set to use .kml as an extension and to not quote output values.

One word of advice: you may need to experiment a bit with street names sometimes, as I had to do in this example: the route from the Safe office to the location of the 2008 FME User Conference at 550 W Hastings Street, Vancouver. Entering just that in Google Maps finds the place, but if that very same URL was passed through FME, it wouldn't come back with a result. So in the end, writing it as 550 Hastings Street W did the trick.