Current data storage and retrieval strategies usually use keywords and are not well suited to retrieving spatial configurations, the proportions of rooms or their interrelationships. Instead of using text-based research, a graphical inquiry and query system is proposed that can recognise formal structures on the one hand and concept sketches on the other.

Inspired by the principle that a person can be identified through their fingerprint, so-called semantic fingerprints are created that store metadata concerning the different sub-aspects of building information and model them in an ontology. It is assumed that each project exhibits a finite number of characteristics in the different sub-aspects or sub-graphs. A characteristic in the semantic fingerprint is a combination of individual pieces of information that relate to one another in a particular way and are present in this combination in similar projects.

1. Preis – Wettberb “Auf IT gebaut” (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie)