AI measuring

Take-Off reads a drawing’s own lines for free first: see Read the drawing. The AI is for the rest: drafting a whole job at once, a scanned page with no lines to read, or a field the lines give nothing for.

Every AI job is paid from your company’s AI credit, and every company gets three whole-job drafts free. The credit left shows beside the buttons, for example AI credit A$31.40 · 2 free drafts left.

Whatever the AI finds lands orange and marked for review, like any other reader’s find, and nothing counts toward a field until you accept it. Check it against the drawing: the AI is a quick first pass, not a sign-off.

Draft this take-off

For a new estimate built from a template, with fields and nothing measured yet. Open the plans, press the magic-wand Read the drawing button, then Draft this take-off….

1. The first screen says how many fields have nothing measured yet, and what is sent. Press Read the drawing.
2. SmarteBuild reads every page that isn’t hidden, in your browser. The words and figures it reads go to the AI, which picks what answers each field. This takes a minute or two.
3. The plan opens: one line per field and page, least certain first. Each line shows the draft quantity, the page, what it was read from and How sure: Sure, Check or Guess. Sheets read lists each page as the AI took it: its type, number, revision, title and scale.
4. Some lines say AI reads the picture: the words on the page were not enough, so the page has to go to the AI as a picture. Each of those is one more paid AI job, so they start unticked. Tick the ones you want.
5. Left for you to measure lists the fields the AI could not answer, with its reason.
6. Untick anything you don’t want, then press Add N for review. Go through each field on the drawing and accept it or fix it.

Hide the pages you will never measure first (the cover sheet, specifications, details): fewer pages is a faster, cheaper and better draft. A page with no scale set gets one read off the drawing, and it is saved only for the pages you add lines from. The plan is kept on this computer, so opening the draft again shows it without a second AI call. Ask the AI again asks for a fresh one.

What it costs: a whole-job draft is about A$1.10 to A$2.60 of credit, depending on the number of pages. Your first three are free. The AI measuring that finishes a free draft’s lines is free too, on the same estimate and within 3 hours of the draft.

Where does the draft stand?

Where does the draft stand?, under Draft this take-off…, shows the estimate so far: the estimate cost, how much of it comes from measurements and how much from the template’s own allowances, the cost per m² once a floor area is measured, the fields still waiting for review (they don’t count yet), the fields with nothing measured, and the items with no price. It is a preliminary estimate, before margin, not a quote. Then run Final check on the BOQ.

Measure with AI

For one field on the page in front of you. With the field open, press the magic-wand button: Measure with AI sits on its own row under the tiles in Read the drawing. The AI looks at the page and proposes measurements for that field. The field’s name, unit and default height are the brief, and anything you have already measured into it shows what “one of these” looks like on this drawing.

• The review strip at the foot of the fields panel quotes what the AI read the field as. If it read it wrong, type a hint (“only the garage”) and press Try again.
• Tick or cross each proposal in the list, or use Accept all / Discard run in the review strip or the pill over the drawing. Drag corners first if a shape is nearly right.
• An area or length field needs the page’s scale first. A count does not.
• Every press is paid from credit, whether you keep the result or not. A run that fails costs nothing.

Symbols like one on a scan

A scanned page has no line work to read. When you box one symbol with Symbols like one (or the Read like one tool) on a scan, the AI pins the matches instead. It looks at the page in close-up parts, then takes a second look at each thing it found before pinning it, so a run takes half a minute or so. The pins arrive for review like everything else, and the run is one AI job.

Let AI pick the rooms

In the Rooms window, Let AI pick the rooms ticks the rooms that belong in the field and says why on each row. It reads only what the drawing already says (the room names, their sizes, the finish notes printed in them and the page’s legend), so no picture of the drawing is sent. Add a hint when the field’s name is not enough (“wet areas only”). The ticks are a suggestion: change them, then add the rooms for review as usual.

Reading the scale

A small magic-wand button beside the Scale dropdown reads the sheet’s title block, scale note or scale bar for you: “the sheet says 1:100 @ A1”. If the PDF page is a different paper size from the one printed (an A1 drawing issued as an A3 PDF), the right scale for this page is worked out (1:200 in that case) and offered as Apply 1:200 to this page. Nothing changes until you press it. Check it against a figured dimension, as for any scale: see Setting the scale.

What is sent

Nothing goes to the AI until you press a button. Draft this take-off and Let AI pick the rooms send the words and figures read off the drawing. Measure with AI, Symbols like one on a scan, reading the scale, and draft lines marked AI reads the picture send an image of the page. The AI service is run by Anthropic in the United States.

When the credit runs out

The AI buttons stop working until an administrator buys more credit. Everything else in Take-Off, including every reader in Read the drawing, keeps working and costs nothing.