Take-Off: measuring a plan
Scale it, measure it, and let it price itself
Why this one matters
Most residential estimating still starts with a printed plan, a scale rule and a highlighter. It works, it takes a day, and the only record of how you got the number is the marks on the paper.
Measuring on screen takes the same decisions and keeps them. The lines stay on the drawing, the quantities go straight into the estimate, and when Rev C arrives you can see exactly what you measured the first time.
What you will see
- Setting the scale from a known dimension on the drawing
- Areas, lengths and counts measured straight onto the plan
- Measurements that stay visible on the drawing afterwards
- The quantity landing in the estimate without being retyped
What was said
The narration, word for word, for anyone who would rather read it than watch it — or who is on a train.
Take-Off measures straight off the drawing. Every take-off follows the same four steps: open the drawing, set the scale, choose what you're measuring, and measure.
Open a drawing from the job's documents.
Set the scale. Pick the ratio printed on the drawing. If it's a scan or a copy, choose Custom and calibrate it against a dimension you know.
Then choose what you're measuring: a take-off field, with its unit. Choose the unit carefully. A wall is metres, a floor is square metres, doors are each.
Now measure. The area tool: click each corner, and double-click to finish. The area is worked out as you go.
Lines and polylines for walls and skirting. Every leg shows its own length.
Count for things you count: downpipes, downlights, power points, doors.
Deduct the openings — windows, doors, voids — so you're not pricing wall that isn't there.
The field adds it all up. In the bill of quantities, point an item at this field with the calculator, and its quantity follows the drawing from now on.
Show prices adds what the bill of quantities items priced off each field come to, so you can see the money behind every measurement while you measure. The eye beside a field hides its marks on the drawing when the plan gets busy, without deleting anything.
Snapping makes new points jump to the corners of what you have already measured, and on a drawing exported from CAD, to the plan's own wall corners and gridlines. Measurements are locked against a slip of the mouse; switch on Move to drag a point. And this button reads the scale off the title block for you, which you confirm before it is used.
Export downloads the drawing with your measurements drawn on it, only the pages you measured, ready to send to a subcontractor or keep with the estimate. The arrow beside it saves the copy straight into the job's Documents instead.
Doing it, rather than watching it
This page is the tour. When you are in SmarteBuild with a job open and need the detail — every option, every exception, the things the video had no time for — the help centre has the full article.
What Take-Off is — the full reference
Read about it instead: Take-Off · Bill of Quantities · Documents & Drawings
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