Takeoffs — measuring straight off the drawings

Takeoffs measures lengths, areas, counts and volumes straight off your plan drawings, so you know how much of everything a job needs before you price it. Point at a wall and get its length. Click inside a room and get its area. Drag a box round one downlight and count every downlight drawn like it. Or let QSME read the sheet for you — the rooms, walls, doors, windows and fixtures it letters and draws — and tick what you want.

One measurement can drive a whole list of materials (twelve metres of wall becomes its studs, plates and nogs), and the quantities flow onto the project's SOQ, so re-measuring a wall moves the SOQ with it. On a townhouse set, Build the SOQ from the drawings goes further: it lays out every trade a QS prices, in build order, and fills in what the drawings can tell it.

Use it after the plans are in Documents and before you price the job. It turns a drawing (PDF, DXF, DWG or IFC) into numbers you can check on the drawing, rather than numbers you have to trust.

Not on every plan yet. Takeoffs is QSME's add-on for measuring off drawings, and it is being switched on gradually, plan by plan and organisation by organisation. If "Takeoffs" isn't in your sidebar, that's why — see If something looks wrong.

Where it sits

Sidebar → Takeoffs, in the Files group, once your plan includes it and it is switched on for your organisation. It opens on the sets page — every drawing set you have started a takeoff on in this project.

A set reads its pages in the background — the sheets appear as each one is ready ("Reading 12 of 46 pages…"), so you can start measuring while the rest are still being read. Once a sheet's scale is known it is also read for what it draws — its rooms, walls, tags, symbols and trade layers — so Read the drawing and The whole set have their answers ready when you open them.

The three-step guide. On a project with no takeoff yet, the sets page shows a short guide: Add your drawings (PDF, DXF, DWG or IFC, each page one sheet of your monthly allowance), We read them (sheets, scale, walls, rooms, doors and windows are found for you), and Measure and build the SOQ (open a sheet to check or measure, then press Build the SOQ). Press Got it to put it away.

Measured as. Above the start button, a line reads "Measured as: <country> · <standard> · <units>", for example New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom or the United States. It comes from the project's country. If it's wrong, press Change before you start. The US reads in feet and inches on ARCH paper sizes.

Big sets and one trade

When you start a takeoff, What do you want to take off? sits under the file:

• Everything — the whole job, every trade. A PDF of up to 60 pages is read at once, as it always was.
• Just some trades… — Plumbing, Electrical, Roofing and the rest (if your profile names your trades, they're chosen for you). Only the pages those trades need are read, and only those count against your allowance.

With a trade chosen — or with any PDF over 60 pages — QSME first lists the file's pages for you. "Listing the pages…" is free: it reads each page's title, not its drawing, so nothing is charged for it. Then the page picker opens:

Press Read N pages and only those pages are read. A page that was already read is never charged again.

Reading more later. The takeoff's card then says "Read 24 of 312 pages" with Read more pages… (for the project's owner or a manager). It opens the same picker with the pages you've read ticked and locked; only the new pages you tick are read and counted. The card also shows the trades the takeoff is for.

AI's answers from Sort the rest with AI are kept in the drawing register (below), marked as placed by AI, so the next time you open the picker — and the trade view, and tender packs — they're still there.

The drawing register

On a takeoff's card, ⋯ › Drawing register opens every page of each PDF in the takeoff as a register — the list a QS sends with a set:

Tick several rows and use Set trade… (tick a trade to give it all of them, untick to take it off all of them), Not needed or Needed again. Show narrows the list to one trade, the pages with no trade yet, or the pages not needed. Every change saves straight away, and the trade view in the viewer, the page picker and tender packs follow it. Only the project's owner or a manager can change the register; anyone on the project can see and export it.

Export register (CSV) downloads the register — page, number, title, revision, issued date, kind, trades, reference trades, not needed, read — in your language; Excel (XLSX) gives the same as a workbook. On a phone the register is a list: tap a page to change its trades or mark it not needed.

Send to tender by trade

⋯ › Send to tender… (or the button in the register) turns the takeoff into tender packs, one per trade:

1. Pick the trades. Only trades with pages in the set are offered; your profile's trades are chosen for you.
2. Each trade shows what its pack holds — "Plumbing: 14 pages · 23 SOQ lines": its own pages plus the general notes (never a page marked not needed), and the SOQ lines in its sections.
3. Press Make 3 tender packs. For each trade QSME cuts a PDF of just those pages, saves it in the project's Documents under Drawings ("Plumbing pack — Lot 3 drawings.pdf"), and makes a draft tender for that trade with its SOQ jobs as the items and the pack attached.

Each pack links to its draft tender. Nothing is sent to anyone and nothing is charged: you review the tender and publish it from Tenders as usual. A pack that can't be made (a protected PDF, say) says why; the others are still made. Plumbers get 14 pages, not 300.

The viewer at a glance

Open a set and you get the sheets down one side, one sheet in the middle with the tools and the scale chip above it, the Items, Layers and Comments panels on the other side, and the Measurements list below. Items is where the bigger jobs start too: Read the drawing, The whole set, Build the SOQ from the drawings and Send items to the SOQ.

Full view

A drawing wants the whole screen. Full view takes QSME's sidebar, header and banners away so the viewer has the whole window. The viewer lays itself out by its own width, so on a laptop where the sidebar and header left it squeezed — the sheets in a strip above the drawing, and Items, Layers, Comments and the List in a bar at the bottom — full view puts everything side by side.

Fold the sheets and the panels

In the wide layout, in or out of full view, the sheet strip and the side panels each have a small fold button on their top edge, so the drawing can take nearly the whole screen.

• Folded sheets become a thin rail with the open sheet's number and ‹ › to step to the sheet before or after, through your own strip in the strip's order. The unfold button at the top brings the strip back.
• Folded panels become a rail with an icon for Items, Layers and Comments (with the number of open comments). An icon opens the panel on that tab. Starting a comment from a shape or from the Comment tool opens Comments by itself.
• A drawing that is still sitting where Fit put it grows into the room; one you have zoomed or panned stays where you left it.

Each fold is yours: it is remembered in this browser for you, and nobody else's view changes. Measuring, selecting and the panels work the same folded or not.

Sheets

The sheet strip lists the set's sheets with their number and title. A sheet replaced by a newer revision is hidden, not deleted.

Grouped by what they draw. When QSME can read most of the titles, sheets sit under headings like Foundation & drainage, Ground floor, First floor, Framing, Roof, Elevations, Sections, Schedules and Details; otherwise by discipline (Architectural, Structural, Civil…). A page whose title block hasn't been read yet is called by its page number and first words: "Page 7 · Roof framing plan…".

Lots on every card. On a multi-unit set each card says which lots it covers — "Lots 1–3", "All lots". A sheet that draws the whole site when other sheets draw the same floor lot by lot is marked Overview — also drawn on A-111, A-112: take off one or the other; the same drawing twice says Same drawing as A-110: take off one. The whole set follows the same rule by itself, so nothing is counted twice.

Search (from six sheets up) finds a sheet by number or title — hidden and archived sheets included, listed apart.

Show one trade

A plumber doesn't need the roof framing. Above the strip, Show picks Everything or one trade — Plumbing, Electrical, Roofing… — from the trades that have a sheet in the set. It starts as the trades the takeoff was started for.

With a trade chosen, the strip lists that trade's sheets first, then the sheets it only looks at, dimmed and marked For reference, and folds everything else under Other sheets (12) (tap to open). A line says how many: "Plumbing: 14 sheets · 6 for reference". The sheet you have open always stays in view.

The same choice sits at the top of the whole set, where parts none of the trade's sheets draw wait under Not for this trade, and of Build the SOQ, which then builds only that trade's sections: "Built for Plumbing — 19 other sections left out", with Build everything to bring them back. Sections left out are never touched in your SOQ. The choice is kept in the page's link, so sending the link sends the view.

Your own sheets

A consent set can hold a hundred drawings when a trade takes off two, so each person keeps their own strip:

The open sheet always shows, marked "Hidden from your sheets" when it is; hiding or archiving it opens the next sheet the strip still shows. A search finds your hidden sheets under "Hidden from your sheets (2)", where Show in my sheets brings one back.

Hiding tidies your strip; it doesn't change the numbers. The whole set and Build the SOQ count every sheet that isn't archived, hidden or not — and say so: "2 of your hidden sheets are counted in the whole set". Only an archived sheet is left out, and that is said too: "Left out: 1 sheet archived for everyone (Page 1)".

Opening a sheet

Panning and zooming follow one rule throughout: with a drawing tool selected, a mouse drag never pans — it places a point instead, even a wobbly or slow one. To pan, hold Space, use the middle mouse button, scroll the wheel, or use two fingers on a touch screen. Select is the one exception: a plain left-drag on bare sheet draws a selection box.

The first time you open a sheet, a three-step card under the toolbar says what to do — pick a tool, click the corners, press Enter or double-click to finish — and Show me rings the toolbar.

The scale chip

The scale chip is always visible and tells you how much to trust the sheet:

Tap it to see the evidence ("10000 on the drawing = 10 m at 1:100", and how many dimensions agree), type the scale and paper size yourself, confirm it, or Calibrate with two clicks on a length you already know — every quantity on that sheet updates at once. Rooms, walls, fixtures and trade layers aren't read off a sheet until it has a scale, so a red chip is the first thing to fix.

Comments

Comment is its own tool (key 7): click anywhere on bare sheet for a pin everyone on the set can see, or click a shape to pin the comment to it. @mention a project member, reply, and resolve or reopen. The Comments panel lists this sheet's open threads and how many are open on the others; resolved pins fade and hide behind Show resolved. The sets page says "3 open comments" on each set.

Tools

Eight tools, each a real button with its own key. Pick sits beside Select in the toolbar because both point at things, so the keys don't run left to right:

Esc finishes a valid shape (or clears it if nothing is valid yet); Enter or a double-click also finishes; Backspace undoes the last point; Shift holds a new point horizontal or vertical to the one before it. Area, Volume and Deduct also close when you click near the first point.

Where a shape goes. Every shape counts towards an item — "Internal walls", "Downlights". A shape goes to the item you have picked in the Items panel. With none of that kind picked, QSME makes one for you, named for the tool and the sheet — "Count on A-101", or "Length on A-101 (2)" if that name is taken — and you can rename it later. Volume asks for a height unless the item already has one. Deduct first asks which area it is taken from (tap it, or select it and then pick Deduct).

Select

Click a shape to see its value, and a small bar floats under it: Edit corners · Duplicate as… · Convert to… · Move to item… · Note · Add a comment · Delete. Shift-click adds another shape to the selection. With one shape selected, its corners become handles: drag one to move it (snapping stays on), Alt-click a side to add a corner, Backspace removes the picked one; a line can be split at a corner, and two lines that meet can be joined. Arrow keys nudge by a screen pixel, or ten with Shift held. Cmd/Ctrl-D duplicates the shape onto the same item. A shape with a Note wears a folded-corner mark, and the Measurements list shows and searches the note.

Pick

Pick draws nothing — it asks the sheet's own lines what is under the pointer, lights it up with its value, and a click takes it:

• Point at a drawn line and you get its run, corner to corner, with its length. A dashed line is followed across its gaps.
• Point inside a room or shape and you get the space the visible lines close around the pointer, with its area.
• Tab steps out: first the whole connected line, then the next closed shape drawn around the space — a slab outline around a room, say.
• Click takes what's lit up. Taking the same line again, or a spot already inside one of the item's own areas, adds nothing — QSME says "That is already in …" rather than doubling it up.

Picked shapes go onto the active item when it measures the same thing, otherwise the item that kind last went to, or a new one.

Joining a room a stray line cut in two

A site boundary or "checking" line, a services line, or a bench or WC pan touching a wall can read as a wall and cut a room into two pieces when it shouldn't. Two fixes:

Shift-click the second piece to join it to the last space you picked, when they share a side — two readings become one area. Or open Layers and switch off the layer that line belongs to, so it never cuts the room in the first place. The catch: that only works when the PDF keeps the line on its own layer; plenty of consultant sets lump survey lines, services and grid lines in with everything else, and then Shift-click is the fix.

What counts as a wall, and what doesn't

Pick has to tell a wall from everything else drawn on a plan, and gets this mostly right by leaving some things out on purpose:

• Patterns aren't walls. Floorboards, tiles, decking and cladding are thousands of evenly spaced lines; they are read as a pattern and ignored, as is any line drawn almost white.
• Dashed lines close nothing. A dashed boundary won't cut a room in two — but you can still pick it as a line, end to end across its gaps.
• A door swing is read as the door shut, so a room ends at its doorway rather than at the swing's arc. A swing drawn as one single path with its leaf isn't recognised, and still reads as a wall.
• Furniture inside a room is ignored, but anything touching a wall — a bench, a WC pan — cuts the space the way a stray line does, and the same two fixes apply.

Where nothing is drawn across an opening — a plain arch, sliding doors with no sill line — Pick can let one room run into the next, because there's no line there to stop it. The highlight shows you this before you click: if two rooms light up as one space, draw that room with Area by hand instead.

A scanned sheet has no lines to read at all; QSME says so and you draw the shape instead.

Count and the drag-box

With Count, drag a box round one symbol and QSME counts every symbol on the sheet drawn the same way — "Counted 12 like this" — a quick way to count every downlight or every post without clicking each one. A box needs both sides at least a few pixels; a slip of the hand with barely any drag is read as a single click. Symbols already counted are skipped ("Those are already counted"), so running the box over the same area twice doesn't double up.

Backspace

Backspace undoes the last point on whatever you're drawing. On Pick, it takes back your last pick. On Count, one Backspace removes everything the last box counted, not just one point of it.

Items

The Items panel is the list of what you are measuring, grouped by trade, each with its running quantity. New item asks what you are measuring and how it is measured (count, length, area, volume), and picks the unit for you; Common items offers ready-made ones.

Quantities read the SOQ's way. "12.347 m", "40.5 m²", "14 nr" — at most three decimal places, no zeros trailing — so an item and the SOQ line it drives say the same number. The exact figure is in the tooltip ("As measured: 12.346869 m"). An item with nothing measured shows a dash and says so, never "0 nr". An amber triangle means some of its shapes sit on a sheet whose scale isn't checked.

This sheet | All sheets, at the top of the list, says whose quantity each row shows: what is measured on the sheet you have open (an item with nothing here is greyed, and says which sheets it is on), or each item's total across the set.

Order and groups. Items sit in their trade in the order you give them. On a desktop, hover an item (or tab to it) for Move up and Move down, or drag it to where it belongs within its trade; on a phone or tablet, tap the item and use Order in its opened view (Move to top, Move up, Move down, Move to bottom). With the item focused, Alt-↑ and Alt-↓ move it too. The order is saved with the takeoff, so everyone sees it. A trade's heading folds its items away and says how many there are; QSME remembers which you folded, for each set, on this browser.

Go to the sheet. An item measured on another sheet says on L101 → (or on 3 sheets →); click it and the viewer goes to that sheet with the item's shapes selected, exactly as Where it is does, and ‹ Sheet 1 of 3 › walks the rest. With the item focused, G does the same; so does a double-click on its name when it isn't on the open sheet.

Click an item

Click an item and it opens up:

Where it is lists every sheet the item is measured on, with that sheet's share ("A-101 · Ground Floor Plan 12.347 m") and the open sheet marked. Click a sheet there and the viewer goes to it and selects the item's shapes, in view, so the selection bar can change or delete them. On several sheets, ‹ Sheet 2 of 3 › walks them — by the buttons, or the arrow keys while it has the focus. With Select in hand, clicking the item itself shows its shapes on the open sheet; with Count, Length, Area or Pick in hand, clicking an item of that kind only makes it the item you measure into, so a count in progress is never pulled away.

On the SOQ says where the item has gone: "On the SOQ: Linings › Plasterboard › Plasterboard to walls · follows the takeoff" (or "· suggested") — one line per SOQ line it feeds, each a link to the SOQ with an unlink button beside it. Or "Not on the SOQ yet", beside Add to the SOQ and Put on a SOQ line. Each line of a build-up says "on SOQ" or "not on SOQ" too.

Rename puts the name in a box (Enter saves, Esc leaves it). Delete item… says what goes before anything goes — "This removes its 12 shapes on 2 sheets (A-101, A-102)", and that any SOQ line following it keeps the quantity it has and stops following the takeoff. It can't be undone.

Build-ups: one measurement, many quantities

A build-up turns what you measured into what you order and price, line by line. Twelve metres of wall becomes studs, stud timber, plates and nogs; an 80 m² slab becomes concrete, mesh and hardfill. The lines follow what's measured — draw more wall and they all move with it.

Work out materials, on the active item, opens the build-up screen. It starts with that one sentence, then says what the lines are worked out from, read off the item itself: "Worked out from 12 counted on 2 sheets (A-101, A-102)", "Worked out from 38.4 m measured on 1 sheet (A-101)", or "Nothing counted yet: the lines follow as you count".

• Ready-made build-ups. With no build-up on the item yet, the ones that fit how it's measured are shown as cards — each with its name, what it assumes and leaves out (lintels, fixings, edge thickenings…), and the lines it gives with their units. Use this puts one on the item. Start from scratch, under the cards, begins with a single line — what you measured — for you to add the materials and labour it needs.
• Numbers you can change are the handful of numbers a job actually sets — stud spacing 0.6 m, wall height, waste 10 % — and changing one shows its effect on every line straight away. Where a number depends on a product (what a pack covers), it's one of these with "check the pack" in the note, never a constant you can't see. Add a number adds one of your own.
• What it gives you (each line can go on the SOQ) lists every line with what it comes to and its unit, picked from the SOQ's own list — m, m², m³, nr, kg, t, L, item, set, hr — so the line lands on the SOQ in the unit you see here. Add a material or labour line adds one of your own.
• Remove build-up asks first. The lines go, and any SOQ line following one of them stops updating; the item and what you measured stay.

The lines then sit under the item in the Items panel, each saying what it comes to and whether it is on the SOQ; the build-up's name above them opens the screen again. On a phone the screen fills it, with Done always in reach.

Advanced: how each line is worked out opens the formulas — nothing else on the screen shows them. Each line is worked out like a spreadsheet cell, from what you measured (Count, Length, Area, Perimeter, Shapes, and always Qty, the item's own quantity), your numbers and the lines above it; the screen says what each of those comes to now, with one worked example. Tap in a formula, then tap a name or a sign (+ − × ÷, brackets, Round up) to put it in, so a phone needs no symbols keyboard.

Each line says what it comes to as you type, or what's wrong in plain words — "It divides by zero". When one line is wrong, the lines that read it don't repeat the complaint: they say Waits on “Studs”, and a tap takes you to the line to fix — so one zero in Stud spacing makes one line wrong, not three. The lines under the item in the Items panel say the same.

Build-ups you get without asking. Rooms taken with Read the drawing come with their finishes — flooring, linings, skirting, cornice and paint, or tiles and waterproofing for a wet room. Walls come with their studs, plates and nogs. A window size comes with its glass, frames and flashings. Each is an ordinary build-up you can open and change.

Settings for this job

Settings for this job holds the numbers your materials are worked out from. Open it from the takeoff. A change is for this project, and Build the SOQ and the whole-set take-off use it.

• The job. Country, wind zone, stud spacing, joist spacing, topsoil strip depth, bulk cut depth, slab excavation depth and plasterboard sheet size, among others.
• Where each number comes from. Each says Your setting (you changed it for this job), Org (your organisation's default) or the country's own default.
• Make this the org default saves your number for every job in the organisation. Reset to default puts a number back.
• Only the project owner or a manager can change them. Everyone else can look.

Under it, Numbers for each build-up points you to the build-up itself, where each number shows where it came from.

From your plans

From your plans reads what the general notes and schedules on your sheets say the job is built with: "Studs at 600 centres", "Framing grade SG8", "Wind zone: High", "Concrete 25 MPa". It works by rules from the words on the sheets, with no guessing, and each line shows the sheet and sentence it was read from.

• Use this takes that value as the job's setting. Build the SOQ then stops assuming it.
• A line says Differs from the default when the plan disagrees with the country's usual figure, and Said two ways — check when the notes contradict each other. possibly marks a weaker reading.
• If it says your plans haven't been read yet, go to the Documents page and press Read a document, then come back.

Where the rules found nothing for some settings, Ask the plans (1 credit) has AI look for them in the same words. Each answer is marked AI read and shows the sentence it quotes and its sheet; nothing is used until you press Use this. If the plans don't say, it tells you and doesn't charge, and asking again about the same plans is free.

Onto the SOQ

Three ways, for three situations:

In every case the new lines arrive unpriced — pricing is the SOQ's job — and lines the SOQ already follows are shown as done and can't be added twice, so you can send the same items again after you've measured more.

A link works one of two ways:

Lines made by Add to the SOQ and Send items to the SOQ are driven: each follows its own line of the build-up, so measuring more wall moves the SOQ's studs and plates at the next refresh (Refresh from takeoff on the SOQ, which also runs when the SOQ opens). Unlink, beside the line in the Items panel, leaves the SOQ line with whatever quantity it last had.

Read the drawing

Read the drawing, on the Items panel, offers what the sheet itself says, for you to tick — one thing at a time, in six steps. Nothing is guessed: a group is only what the sheet actually letters or draws, anything the reader isn't sure of is listed apart, unticked, with the reason, and reading again finds what's already been taken and adds nothing twice. Whatever you take lands on the drawing as ordinary shapes, to be seen, checked and corrected like anything measured by hand.

Beside each step: how many it found and, once anything in it is ticked, how many it will add ("4 to add"). Ticks are kept as you move between steps, and one Add takes them all — "To add: Rooms 4 · Walls 2 · Fixtures and symbols 8". Two rules keep it safe: only steps you opened count (rooms and doors and windows come ticked, but a step you never looked at adds nothing, so nothing is added unseen), and walls, fixtures and trade layers start unticked — you say which you want. The step you last looked at is where the dialog opens next time. A step with nothing says why, and what to use instead — see When a step is empty.

Rooms

A room is a name lettered on the plan — "BEDROOM 2", "ENS", "LDRY" — and the closed space around it. Rooms are offered by kind (every bedroom together, every bathroom together), each with its area and the distance around it; ticking a group makes one Area item ("Bedroom") with a shape per room. Where a plan has wall layers, a room is closed by its walls alone, so a tile joint or a vanity can't cut it or shrink it.

Some groups are kept apart, unticked, so you check them yourself: two names sharing one space; a space closed by lines that aren't walls (a schedule cell, a legend); anything under 0.25 m²; and a named space not closed by lines at all (a deck, a porch), listed by name to measure with Area. On a sheet that isn't a floor plan nothing is ticked: names on a section are not floor areas.

Room size. Where the walls were read too, the Rooms step offers three sizes, drawn so you can see the difference, and the choice switches every room's area, the distance around it and the shape taken:

A room with no walls read around it stays at its inside faces, and the step says so. Taken at another size, the item is named for it ("Bedroom — wall centres") so the three can sit side by side. The choice is remembered and shared with The whole set.

Work out floor, linings, skirting and paint for the rooms is ticked by default (inside faces only): each kind of room gets a finishes build-up from its floor area and the distance around its walls — wet rooms get tiles, waterproofing and wet-area linings instead. Every number is a setting. Turn it off if you only want the areas.

Walls

On a CAD plan a wall is drawn as a closed shape: two faces a stud's depth apart, with a short end at each opening. On a floor plan with wall layers, the Walls step offers them under what they stand between, and by thickness under that ("External walls 90 mm × 6 — 42.5 m"):

Measure the walls on chooses which of a wall's three lines is measured, drawn the same way as the room sizes:

A ticked group becomes one Length item with a line on every wall ("External walls 90 mm", or "External walls 90 mm — outside face"). Work out studs, plates and nogs (ticked by default, centre line only) gives it the timber framing build-up; wall height, stud spacing and waste are settings you can change.

Walls are offered, not ticked: a thickness is what is drawn, not what the wall is made of, so look before you take. Walls are read on floor plans only — on a section a wall's line is its height.

Doors and windows

The tag on each opening — "D01", "W12", or a draughting package's own style like "DA100" — and the size written on the line under it: "720" for a door's width, or "900 × 2,200" for a window's width by height, in millimetres. They're grouped the way they're priced — all the 870 doors together, all the 900 × 2,200 windows together — with their tags listed beside each group. Ticking a group makes one Count item with a point on every tag; tags already counted are skipped.

Work out glass and frames for the windows (ticked by default) gives each window size its own aluminium joinery build-up, with glass area, frame and flashing lengths worked out from the size and the count. Doors are counted by width; they don't have a build-up of their own yet.

Fixtures and symbols

Trade by trade, the things a plan draws as symbols — smoke alarms, downlights, power points, extract fans, hot water cylinders, WCs, basins, showers, baths, sinks, dishwashers, floor wastes, downpipes… Each kind is a row under its trade (Fire safety, Electrical, Ventilation, Plumbing fixtures, Appliances, Drainage, then the key's other symbols), named as the sheet's key names it ("Photoelectric Smoke Alarm"). Each row says:

• How many are drawn ("× 8") and, on a plan of several units, how many in each lot ("Lot 1: 2 · Lot 2: 2").
• How they were found: drawn like the key's symbol; by their outline on the plumbing fixtures layer (a WC is told from a basin by its shape and real size); or by the code lettered beside each ("SA") — drawn unlike the key's symbol, so said in amber to check.
• Vanity units and basins apart: a vanity is its bench, so a double vanity is one vanity unit and two basins; a wall-hung or pedestal basin is a basin with no vanity.
• What the sheet states beside what is drawn — "12 in the schedule", "2 in the key" — in amber where the two differ, so you check which is right. A kind the sheet states but draws none of is listed as "none drawn", not offered.

Kinds are offered, not ticked. A ticked kind becomes one Count item named as the row, filed under its trade, with a point where each one sits — to see on the sheet and correct like any count.

Trade layers

A CAD export keeps its layers, and a layer named for a trade usually carries that trade's work: "SW Drains Private", "Foundation Ground Slab", "Brick Rebate". The step lists them under their trades — Concrete, Drainage, Water and gas, Ventilation, Brickwork, Roofing, Site works — each as one quantity: a drain by its length (dashes joined, so a drain drawn in dashes is one run), a slab by its area. A ticked layer becomes one item named for it, with a shape on every run or outline.

New, existing or to be removed. One layer often carries both the work that is there and the new work. Where the sheet's key tells its line types apart ("Ex. Stormwater Main", "Proposed Sewer"), or the plan letters them along the runs ("EX. 225Ø SW MAIN", "Proposed 150 uPVC sewer"), each run is marked New, Existing or To be removed, and says where that came from ("from the key", "lettered on the drawing"). Existing work is offered like any other, marked — tick only what you price.

Roofs. On a roof plan the roof's lines — eaves, ridges, hips and valleys — are read as the faces of the roof, each at the pitch lettered in it, so the roof comes out as laid, not as it looks from above (see Take off).

Layers are not ticked for you: a layer's name says whose work it is, not that it is wanted — the public sewer in the road is on the plan too.

Typical units

A townhouse block or an apartment floor draws the same unit again and again. Measure one and let it count for every unit like it:

• From the Units step. Read the drawing's last step, Units, lists the units the plan draws — named on it, or read by their layout drawn again (“unnamed — read by its repeated layout”). Where several are drawn alike — moved, mirrored (handed) or turned — it offers Make a unit type · × 5: one click makes Type A from the first unit, counted for each unit alike, each in its own lot.
• From a shape. Draw an area round one unit with Area, select it, and choose Make this a unit type on the bar under it. The units read on the sheet that are drawn like it become its instances.

Then measure inside the type's outline as usual. Each instance is outlined on the sheet with a dashed line, labelled “Type A × 5 · Unit 3”. In the items, a quantity measured on a type shows × 5 beside it (hover for “Measured on Type A, counted 5 times”); open the item to see each lot's share. The measurements list says the same against each shape. Change a shape on the type and every unit follows — nothing is copied.

A unit that differs. Something drawn inside one of the other units (not the type) counts once, for that unit only, and the unit is marked “Unit 3 differs: 1 extra” — on the sheet, in the Units step and in The whole set. A unit that is not quite typical keeps its own extras.

Delete a type in the Units step: its shapes stay and count once again. When a new revision of the sheet comes in, the type and its units come across with the shapes. The whole set and Build the SOQ list the set's unit types (× N, their lots, the sheet measured on). Quantities from a type count once per unit in the items and the SOQ lines linked to them; lines read off the drawings count every unit as drawn. On a phone the labels and “× N” show; types are made on a bigger screen.

Ask AI

Where a step lists rows the reader wasn't sure of — two rooms' names sharing one space, a space with no name, an outline on the fixtures layer that could be a WC or a basin, a symbol found only by the code lettered beside it — the step shows Ask AI (1 credit) above its list. One click asks about up to 8 of those rows at once, for one AI credit: QSME cuts a small picture of the sheet around each row, its outline drawn on it in bright pink, and asks AI which of the names the row could be it is.

Each answer appears under its row — "AI thinks: Basin — a bowl inside a vanity bench · 82%" — with a tick, Take as Basin. Ticking it ticks the row and takes it by that name (a basin goes into your Basins item, a space taken as Hall becomes a Hall item with its finishes). Nothing is taken until you tick an answer, and the row's own tick still takes it by its own name. Where AI can't tell, it says so ("AI isn't sure") and offers no tick.

AI only ever chooses among the names the row could have and the plain room and fixture words; it never draws a shape or changes a measurement. If AI can't answer, the credit is given back. The answer stays while you work on the sheet — closing and opening the dialog doesn't ask (or charge) again — and asking about the same rows again later is free. With no AI credits left the button says so; top up or decide the rows yourself.

When a step is empty

Drawings with no layers (most Revit PDF exports) offer rooms and tags but not walls or trade layers. A scan offers nothing: there is no lettering or linework to read.

The whole set

The whole set, on the Items panel, shows every part of the building the set draws — the foundation, each floor, the framing, the roof — with what its sheets read as, per lot and in total, without opening a sheet. It is the QS's first look at the job: how much of what does each lot take?

Only the sheets that should be taken off are summed — a floor drawn on an overview and again on per-lot plans counts once, and each part says which sheets it used ("From A-111, A-112 instead of A-101"). Each thing is counted where it belongs: rooms, walls, doors and windows on the floor plans; the slab, drains and brick rebate on the foundation; the roof on the roof plan.

Finding your way:

• Parts of the building are listed down the side with how many rows each has, "Everything" first (a drop-down on a narrower screen).
• Within a part, rows sit under plain headings: Rooms, Walls, Doors, Windows, Fixtures & symbols, then each trade's runs and areas (Drainage, Concrete, Roofing…).
• Lots shown: all of them, one of them, or what isn't split by lot. With one chosen, only its column shows.
• Find a row by name. Room size switches every room row, as in Read the drawing.
• Quantities read the SOQ's way, and the total sits right after the unit, so it stays in view when eight lots scroll.

Where each number comes from. A row opens to the sheets it is read from, each with its value there, with Open the sheet and Show on the sheet — which opens the sheet with Read the drawing already on the step that lists that row. A row's sheets always add up to its total.

The whole set says what it leaves out, so a number is never a surprise: the gaps between double walls; the public network in the street; and what the key calls existing or to be removed, which gets its own row marked "there already, not in the SOQ". A single party wall is shared half each; a double one is wholly each lot's own half. Rooms with no walls read around them are at their inside faces. Sheets not read yet, or read by an older reader, are listed and Read them now reads them; a sheet with no scale is not read until you set one.

When the drawings read differently. QSME gets better at reading drawings, and a sheet is read again when it does. Items you took off an earlier reading then say so: "The drawings read differently now — update 3 items" (on the sheet and in the whole set). Review shows each item from → to and on which sheets before anything changes; Update replaces the shapes nobody has changed with the new reading's, and keeps any you moved or edited. The SOQ built from the drawings says the same — "3 lines of the SOQ built from them change" — and Review opens Build the SOQ on just those changes.

Sense checks

Under the Schedule check and What the plans say, Sense checks lists the ratios a QS would raise an eyebrow at, a line each: "External walls 1.9 m per m² of floor — usual for townhouses is 0.9–1.4: check A-101, A-102" (amber), "Roof area 1.3 × floor — usual" (muted), or "not read" (grey) where a part of the ratio was not read. They are external and internal wall per m² of floor, floor area per bedroom, doors and windows per bedroom, WCs and basins per bathroom, roof to floor area, floor area per unit and windows per metre of external wall. Hover a line for why it lands where it does. A ratio outside the range is a question, not an error: an odd building is allowed to be odd. The kind of building is a house for one unit and townhouses for two or more. The usual ranges are indicative (NZ residential) and the benchmark will calibrate them. The trade lens keeps the checks of its trades, and Build the SOQ puts a line at the top of a trade whose check looks high or low.

Take off

A row opened offers Take off: its readings on every sheet it sums become the item Read the drawing would make, with its shapes exactly where they were read — on every sheet at once. The dialog says what it will make before ("Makes an Area item “Bedroom”: 8 rooms on 2 sheets") and what it made after.

• A roof is taken at its pitch. Two roof faces of 40 m² seen from above, at 30°, are 92.38 m² of roof — so each pitch becomes an item of its own, set to that pitch, and the items add up to the row, as does what reaches the SOQ.
• Nothing twice. What an item already has is left alone: a room whose name sits inside one of its outlines, a tag or symbol a counted point sits on, a sheet where it already has walls or runs. The row says Taken when its items have everything, Part taken · 3 left when they have some, and Checking… while it looks — never a guess.
• With one lot shown, Take off still takes the whole set ("Take off — All lots"): an item covers the set, not a lot.
• What can't be measured is left out and said. Rooms the reader wasn't sure of are taken with the rest and said, to be looked at on the sheet.

Download gives the view as shown — the parts, the lot and the search you chose — as CSV or Excel: a line per row with its part, heading, name and unit, a column per lot and the total, and the sheets it is read from. On a phone each row is a card.

Build the SOQ from the drawings sits at the foot of the whole set, and on the Items panel.

Build the SOQ from the drawings

Everything above fills a takeoff. Build the SOQ from the drawings fills a schedule: every trade a QS prices for this kind of job, in the order it is built, each line filled from the drawings where they can tell it, and saying how to get it where they can't.

It works from a template — the SOQ a QS would set up at the start of an estimate for a kind of project, written down once. The template offered follows your project's country — Townhouses, timber frame (NZ) for New Zealand, Houses and townhouses, timber frame (AU) for Australia (the same trades and lines in Australian words: Gyprock, MGP10, Colorbond, development approval and occupation certificate), Houses and terraces, timber frame (UK) for the United Kingdom (UK words: plasterboard, C24, facing brick, roof tiles or slates, SVP and RWP; planning permission, Building Regulations approval and a completion certificate; grouped in the NRM2 order, from 0 Facilitating works to 9 Main contractor's preliminaries), Houses and townhouses, wood frame (US) for the United States (the same lines in CSI MasterFormat divisions and US words — gypsum board, SPF #2 studs at 16" o.c., asphalt shingles, building permit and certificate of occupancy — with every quantity shown and sent in LF, SF, CY, EA or roofing squares; the drawings are read in feet and inches at 1/4" = 1'-0"); the dialog's title says which, "NZ · ANZSMM", "AU · AIQS", "UK · NRM2" or "US · CSI MasterFormat"). A country with no pack of its own yet reads with New Zealand's rules and says so beside the set's name. The NZ one — terraced timber-framed townhouses on a concrete slab, brick veneer and lightweight cladding, a long-run metal roof, an existing house demolished first, 2.4 m studs unless a line says otherwise. Its 21 trades run in build order from Preliminaries and Consents through Demolition, Drainage, Foundations, Framing, Roofing, External envelope, Windows and doors, Plumbing, Electrical, Linings and Interior painting to External works and Handover. If your job is something else, the trades still make a fair checklist — but every note assumes a townhouse, so read them before you price.

Every line says where it stands:

About a third of the template's lines are hand measurements, hand counts or sums by nature — fees, consents, temporary works, scaffolding. Lines to measure or count arrive at 0 for you to fill; sums arrive at 1, so the rate you type on one is its amount. The summary at the top says how it went, for example "90 lines from the drawings · 60 to measure or count · 41 sums".

Tick the trades to add — or add them one at a time. Every trade not already in your SOQ starts ticked, for the whole project at once (Tick all · Untick all sit above the list). Or open a trade and press Add <trade> to the SOQ: the dialog stays open, so you can go trade by trade. A trade already in your SOQ by name isn't ticked again, and if you tick it anyway it warns you that it would add a second copy — your SOQ would count it twice — and asks first. Click a trade to see its jobs and lines, and change any quantity first if you know better: the lines worked out from it follow. A line per lot makes one SOQ line per lot instead of one line with the lots in its description. The button always says how many lines it will really make. If something fails to load or save, it says so with Try again.

What lands in the SOQ. The ticked trades go in as pockets, jobs and lines, in build order and unpriced, ready for your rates. Each line's description says where its quantity came from and what it assumes — "From the drawings: A-101, A-102 · Lot 1 12.4 · Lot 2 11.8 · windows and doors taken off (doors at 2.1 m high)", or "Measure by hand on the drawings · Measured round the site boundary on the site plan". Lines to measure or count arrive at 0 with that note; sums arrive at 1.

Worth knowing:

• The roof comes as laid — each face the roof plan's lines close, at the pitch lettered in it.
• Existing work is left out where the key or the lettering marks it, and the line says how much: "existing work left out, as the drawing marks it: 40 m".
• Rooms are taken at the size each line needs: carpet and linings at the inside faces; the mid-floor and its flooring out to the outside faces, where the floor runs under the walls.
• An external wall's area loses its windows by their sizes, and its doors at 2.1 m high, where the line asks for it; an internal wall keeps its openings in. The note says which.
• Hidden and archived sheets are treated as in the whole set: hidden sheets are counted and said; archived sheets are left out and named.

These lines are a snapshot, not a link. Build the SOQ writes each quantity from the drawings as read when you press the button, with its source in the description. The lines do not move when you measure more. A line you want to keep following the takeoff is made from an item instead — Add to the SOQ or Send items to the SOQ — and shows "follows the takeoff".

Products, prices and time

These live on the SOQ page, for lines Build the SOQ or a build-up made.

A product on a line. A material line that says what it is (size, grade, treatment) has Pick a product. It lists matching products suppliers sell in the marketplace, best first. Choose one and the line shows "From <supplier>". If the line has no rate yet, the product's price goes in as the rate. A rate you typed is never written over. Clear the product from this line takes it off and leaves the rate as it is. With no match it says "No matching products yet".

Price the job. The button fills lines that have no rate yet, from your rate book first, then from suppliers. A rate you have typed is never changed, and labour lines are skipped (labour is priced by hand). It shows a preview first, for example "12 from your rate book · 5 from suppliers · 3 would be estimated · 9 left blank", then Apply these rates. Each line says where its rate came from, and Undo takes it off again. You can tick Estimate the rest with AI if you want.

Rate book. The Rate book button lists the rates your business has used, by material. A rate you type on a line, or take from a product, is remembered and used to price your next job. AI estimates are never added.

Time per stage. After you've built from the drawings, the Time button shows how long each stage takes with your crews: days, start, and crew size. It is indicative, our own everyday rates, not a quote and not a promise. You can change a crew's size. Push to Schedule puts the stages on the project's Schedule, and pushing again updates those tasks and leaves ones you made by hand alone.

Layers

The Layers panel lists the PDF's own layers, each with a switch and how many lines are drawn on it — a count, not a length, which tells the layers carrying the work from the near-empty ones. Switching a layer off does two things at once: the sheet is redrawn without it, and its lines are taken out of Pick's reading and out of snapping — a hidden layer bounds nothing, so it can't cut a room or get picked by mistake. Read the drawing reads the sheet as you see it, so a layer you've switched off isn't read either.

If a PDF has no layers at all, QSME says so; measuring works exactly the same, just without anything you can switch off. For that, ask the designer for the DWG or IFC.

The measurements list

Every shape you've drawn, picked or taken from a reading, in one table: item, sheet, kind, quantity, who measured it and when, with any note under its item. Filter by kind, item or sheet, search by item, note or sheet number, click a row to go to the shape on its sheet, and download CSV or Excel — a plain record of the takeoff, outside the drawing.

When the drawings change

The architect issues revision C. You don't start again. On the takeoff's card, open ⋯ → New revision of the drawings… (the project's owner or a manager), choose which drawing it replaces, then pick the new file. It goes into Documents as the next version of that same drawing and is read into the same takeoff — pages count against your monthly allowance as any new read does.

As each sheet is read, your shapes move onto it by themselves: QSME lines the new page up with the old one and carries every shape across. Totals and the SOQ keep following the takeoff the whole time; the old revision keeps its old shapes for the record.

Shapes that sit where the drawing changed are flagged. They get an amber outline on the sheet and a warning triangle with the reason in the Measurements list and under the shape:

• Looks right — you've checked it, the flag goes.
• Fix — takes you to the shape to move or redraw it; changing its outline clears the flag too.
• Delete — the shape is no longer needed.

On the sheets strip, a card shows Rev C · 2 to check while shapes wait for a look, and Updated from rev B once none do.

What changed on a sheet (the chip at the top, or the switch in Layers) shades the drawing: green where lines were added, red hatching where lines were taken out, amber where something changed. It shows by itself the first time you open an updated sheet, then stays off until you ask.

On the Takeoffs page the takeoff's card says Drawings updated — 14 shapes moved, 2 to check, and What changed lists every sheet that was updated: from which revision to which, how many shapes moved and how many need a look, what each item's quantity did ("Internal walls 142.3 m → 148.1 m (+5.8 m)"), and an Open sheet link. If QSME couldn't move a sheet's shapes it says so there, and they stay on the old revision.

Bluebeam markups

If you (or your QS) measured in Bluebeam, bring those markups in rather than measuring again. On the takeoff's card or in the viewer, open ⋯ → Import Bluebeam markups… and choose the .xfdf or .bax you exported from Bluebeam (Markup › Export). The file is read on your own device first, and QSME tells you what will land — "14 markups on 3 pages → 5 items" — before anything changes.

• Lines and polylines become lengths, polygons and rectangles become areas, and circles, stamps and count markups become counts, on the same page of the same PDF.
• Each markup goes under an item named by its subject in Bluebeam ("Skirting", "Floor tiles"). If the takeoff already has an item of that name and kind, the markup joins it.
• Text boxes, highlights and other markups with nothing to measure are left out, and QSME says how many.
• A markup on a page that hasn't been read into the takeoff yet, or one that falls off the sheet, is left out with the reason; the rest still come in. Importing the same file twice doesn't double anything.
• When the takeoff was read from more than one PDF, choose which one the markups were made on.

Going the other way, ⋯ → Export to Bluebeam (XFDF) downloads your shapes as Bluebeam markups: a polyline for each length, a polygon for each area and a small circle for each counted point, each with its item's name and colour, and your name as the author. In Bluebeam, open the same PDF and use Markup › Import.

Bluebeam markups only go on PDF drawings; a takeoff read from DXF, DWG or IFC files says so.

RFIs — asking the architect

When the drawings disagree or don't say, raise an RFI (a request for information) right from the line that shows the doubt. Look for the small question icon, Raise an RFI, on:

• the whole set's Schedule check and What the plans say lines,
• Read the drawing's rows it wasn't sure of (a room with no name, fixtures it couldn't place, a layer it couldn't sort, an outline it couldn't name),
• a shape's Note.

The RFI opens with the doubt's own words and its sheet filled in. Add what you need to know and, if you like, the architect's e-mail address — they get the question in full by e-mail, with a link that opens the drawing for people on the project (sign-in needed; there is no public page). An RFI on a sheet also shows on the drawing as a comment.

Every RFI is numbered (RFI 1, RFI 2…). The takeoff's card says RFIs: 2 open · 1 answered; open it for the list, or use the RFIs tab in the viewer's Comments panel. When the answer comes back, choose Answer and type or paste it in — the RFI becomes Answered and the answer is added to its comment thread. Close it when it's dealt with (its comment is resolved too), Reopen it if not, or Send by e-mail to send it again or to someone else.

Delete a takeoff or start over

The ⋯ on a takeoff's card, and at the top of the viewer, has Start over with a new file… and Delete takeoff… — for the project's owner or a manager.

Before anything goes, the confirm checks the takeoff and says exactly what will be deleted for everyone: its sheets, its items and the shapes measured on them. The SOQ lines that follow its items are listed too, but they are not deleted — each keeps the quantity it has and stops following the takeoff, so it's yours to type from then on. The drawing itself stays in Documents. A deleted takeoff can't be brought back.

Start over is for when the drawings change, or the read went wrong. It deletes the takeoff the same way, then opens Start a takeoff with its name, units and measurement standard already filled in (change them there if you like). Upload the new drawing, or pick one already in the project. Picking the same file again costs nothing: you'll see "You've already read this file — it's in the takeoff below, so nothing was charged. Opening it." and it opens the takeoff you have. A new upload is a new read: each page counts as one sheet of your monthly allowance. Start over throws the old shapes away; if the architect has only reissued the drawings, use New revision of the drawings… instead (next section) and keep your work.

Documents and takeoffs

A takeoff reads its own copy of each drawing, so once it has started it doesn't depend on Documents.

The Takeoff badge. In a project's Documents, a drawing a takeoff was made from carries a small Takeoff badge. Tap it to open that takeoff.

Deleting a drawing a takeoff uses. When the project's owner deletes such a drawing — or a selection that includes one — QSME asks once, listing each takeoff and what it holds:

If the document went but the takeoff couldn't be deleted, QSME says so — delete it from Takeoffs.

Shortcuts

Device support

Desktop and iPad get all eight tools and every panel. The viewer lays itself out by its own width, not the window's, so the app's sidebar or a split screen counts — and full view gives it the whole window. With room for a drawing at least 720 px wide beside the strip and the panels, everything sits side by side. Narrower than that — an iPad held upright, say — the sheets run in a strip above the drawing and Items, Layers, Comments and the List open from a bar at the bottom; every tool still works. Under 600 px — a phone — the viewer is for looking, a quick count and a comment: Select, Count and Comment are the tools, the Items panel offers The whole set (each row a card) but not Read the drawing or Send items to the SOQ, and the page scrolls, with the drawing kept a usable height so a banner can't squeeze it away.

For developers

Your own software can read your organisation's takeoffs, and be told when

something happens, without anyone signing in.

• API keys — an owner or admin of the organisation creates one in

Settings → API keys: read only, or read and write, for every project or

just the ones you choose. The key is shown once; copy it into your system's

secrets. Your system swaps it for a short-lived token for one project and

reads sets, sheets, measurements and quantities (or adds measurements, with

a read-and-write key on a project whose plan includes Takeoffs). Revoke a

key there and it stops straight away.

• Webhooks — in Settings → Webhooks, add your server's https address

and pick the events: drawings read, a file failed, a reissue carried over,

an RFI answered. QSME signs every message so your server can check it came

from us; Send test shows whether your server is reachable.

The full developer guide — the token exchange, every route, the signature

check with example code — is in the engine's contract at /v1/openapi.json

and docs/takeoff/PUBLIC_API.md; ask us for a copy if you are building an

integration.

Words used on this page

More in the glossary.

If something looks wrong

Still stuck? hello@qsme.co.nz, or +64 27 338 8500.