An engineering design process supported by knowledge retrieval from a spatial database

An algorithm is presented which has the purpose of allowing the search of a nonhomogeneous database which contains engineering design information and other data relevant to the engineering design process. The purpose of the work is to develop a system which improves the design process by providing a quick access mechanism to heterogeneous, complex knowledge. The algorithm is based on a new type of fuzzy query (i.e. iterative, ranked retrieval) from an exclusive, partitional, spatial database. A prototype system which implements a small database and this retrieval from a PLOP hashing database is described and an example is presented which demonstrates its application.