An intelligent assistant for building inspection

This paper describes the aims, contents, and technological features of an intelligent system prototype for helping building inspectors working in local government planning departments of small-sized towns in Apulia, Italy. The inspector's task is to assess the compliance, adequacy and eligibility of proposed projects with the laws and regulations in force. The participant observation method was used to collect a large amount of domain knowledge in six Planning Departments that were used to implement the prototype system and develop a general model for supporting building inspection. The goal is to develop an intelligent assistant, which: (1) can augment or supplements human expertise, (2) is adaptive, (3) provides nonlinear navigation, (4) makes effective use of available information, and (5) is user-friendly and interactive. The prototype integrates different techniques (databases, expert systems, and hypertext) within an Urban Information System.