Leveraging the SPARQL SERVICE Clause for External Computation on Linked Building Data

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

Abstract

The documentation of buildings accumulates heterogeneous data over time, such as inspection reports, plans, Building Information Modeling (BIM) models, and photographs. Correlating these sources requires domain-specific computation, such as distance calculations or topological reasoning. Linked Data approaches can integrate heterogeneous sources in their native formats and make them accessible through the query language SPARQL. Domain-specific computations, however, often fall outside the native scope of SPARQL, and existing engine-level extensions depend on vendor adoption, a condition that solutions in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) domain rarely meet. This paper proposes Functional Satellites (FS), a pattern for lightweight, self-hostable services that provide domain-specific computation within a standard SPARQL workflow by receiving delegated subqueries through the SERVICE clause, requiring no modification of the underlying SPARQL engine. The pattern is demonstrated through a spatial querying satellite implementing distance operations equivalent to the GeoSPARQL standard and is evaluated across three triplestore implementations. The evaluation shows that portability depends on query design and identifies a query pattern that is portable across the tested systems. The pattern thereby shows a path towards lowering the barrier for the AEC domain to provide its own specialised computation services, such as spatial reasoning over building data.

Authors 4

1. Jyrki Oraskari Aachen Design Computation Cluster of Excellence CARE

   Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction · Technische Universität Dresden · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Design Computation, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

   Cluster of Excellence CARE, TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen, Germany

2. Anne Göbels Aachen Design Computation Cluster of Excellence CARE

   Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction · Technische Universität Dresden · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Design Computation, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

   Cluster of Excellence CARE, TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen, Germany

3. Jeroen Werbrouck
4. Jakob Beetz Aachen Design Computation Cluster of Excellence CARE

   Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction · Technische Universität Dresden · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Design Computation, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

   Cluster of Excellence CARE, TU Dresden and RWTH Aachen, Germany