EnOB: DiMASH - Digitization of Plant Schematics to Increase the Energetic Performance of Existing Buildings

The heating and cooling supply systems of buildings are usually documented in schematics. These documents contain important information about the topology and the components of the systems that are useful for designers, building managers, and technical monitoring service providers along the complete building life cycle. However, these schematics are often only available in paper form, as CAD or pdf files and the information that they contain is almost not accessible digitally. This situation makes the data collection tedious and hampers the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of refurbishment or a technical monitoring projects.

In the »DiMASH« project, we are developing innovative methods to digitally capture, link and describe the heterogeneous information and relationships contained in HVAC schematics. To this, the developers are relying on innovative methods from image and text recognition and machine learning. The digitized schematics can subsequently be used to support a refurbishment project or a technical monitoring.

Once a digital plant schematic is available, it can be used in a variety of ways: For example, it can be supplemented with information from an as-built survey as part of a refurbishment project, the sensor technology required for a technical monitoring can be determined and located in the schematic, or supervision rules can be created for the operational monitoring of the building's technical systems. The objective is to simplify and accelerates the planning processes for the monitoring or refurbishment of the systems. In addition, subsequent operational monitoring can be realized more easily. Finally, the goal is to reach a fault-free and energy-efficient building operation   and to minimize subsequently CO2 emissions.

The partners will demonstrate the methods developed in the first phase of the project in an operational environment in several properties in cooperation with the specialists from the planning and contracting sector (Scherr+Klimke, Maurer) and develop them to a technology readiness level between TRL 6 and TRL 7.