diff --git a/CMake/mitkFunctionGetVersionDescription.cmake b/CMake/mitkFunctionGetVersionDescription.cmake
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..816fd5e79a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CMake/mitkFunctionGetVersionDescription.cmake
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#! \brief Extract the version description from a local working copy
+#!
+#! If the given repository is a git repository, the functions runs the
+#! git rev-parse --exact-match HEAD command 
+#!
+#! Information provided is stored in  ${prefix}_REVISION_DESC an is
+#! \ul
+#!  \li The exact tag if the HEAD of the source-tree has a tag
+#!  \li the 'git describe' output, which is <latest-reachable-tag>-<#Commits>-g<SHORT-HASH>
+#! \lu
+#! In case the working copy contains local changes, the ${prefix}_REVISION_DESC strings will contain
+#! a suffix [local changes]
+#!
+#! \param source_dir The directory containing a working copy
+#! \param prefix A prefix to prepent to the variables containing
+#!               the extracted information
+#!
+function(mitkFunctionGetVersionDescription source_dir prefix)
+
+  if(NOT prefix)
+    message(FATAL_ERROR "prefix argument not specified")
+  endif()
+
+  # initialize variable
+  set(_wc_description "NO TAG FOUND")
+  set(_dirty_repo_str " [local changes]")
+
+  find_package(Git)
+  if(GIT_FOUND)
+  
+    GIT_IS_REPO(${source_dir} _is_git_repo)
+    if(_is_git_repo)
+      execute_process(COMMAND git describe --exact-match --dirty=${_dirty_repo_str}
+                      WORKING_DIRECTORY ${source_dir} 
+                      OUTPUT_VARIABLE _project_git_tagname
+                      RESULT_VARIABLE _proper_version
+                      ERROR_VARIABLE _description_error )
+
+      if(_proper_version EQUAL 0 )
+        set(_wc_description ${_project_git_tagname})
+  
+      else(_proper_version EQUAL 0)
+        # the execution failed, i.e. the HEAD has no tag, 
+        # for fallback string: execute again but without the --exact-match
+        execute_process(COMMAND git describe --dirty=${_dirty_repo_str}
+                    WORKING_DIRECTORY ${source_dir} 
+                    OUTPUT_VARIABLE _wc_description
+                    RESULT_VARIABLE _proper_version
+                    ERROR_VARIABLE _description_error)
+      endif()
+
+      # remove newline at and of the string
+      string(STRIP "${_wc_description}" _wc_description)
+
+    endif()
+  endif()
+
+  set(${prefix}_REVISION_DESC ${_wc_description} PARENT_SCOPE )
+
+endfunction()