The invention discloses a figure describing and exchanging method, the method comprises the following steps: a system to be enquired receives a request for acquiring figure by an enquiry system; the system to be enquired performs metadata description for the device object corresponding to the figure and saves as common information; the system to be enquired transmits the metadata description of the device object to an enquiry system; the enquiry system and the system to be enquired both are pre-stored with the device object figure corresponding to the metadata description of the device object and the device object figure.