Quantity Takeoff

Quantities are how you back your scopes with real numbers, for your own internal processes. Struction lets you take off quantities directly on the drawings and link them to your scope items — and it reads the scale off almost every drawing automatically, so you don't have to.

Where takeoff works

You can take off and annotate a drawing wherever you can open it: in Focus View (from either map), in the Detail Panel, and by clicking a quantity in a Scope of Work. Marks and measurements you make on a page show up on every instance of that page, everywhere it appears.

Three ways to get a quantity

1. Measure it yourself with the takeoff tools — Area, Perimeter, Volume, Lineal, or Count. Pick a tool from the toolbar and trace the measurement on the drawing, then link it to a scope item with the link button in the quantity panel.
2. Let Struction pull it from a schedule. Struction can read counts directly out of a drawing's schedule and turn them into a quantity for you.
3. Type it in. Enter a quantity directly on a scope item if you already know it.

Count takeoff

• Click each item you want to count, or drag a box over an item to place a count marker sized to that box. Hold S while dragging to make the box square.
• Double-click a saved count to edit it. You can add more markers, drag a marker to move it, or right-click a marker to remove it.
• While editing, hover over a marker and press Backspace or Delete to remove it.

Area takeoff

• Click around the area, then click the first point again to close it. For a rectangle, drag from one corner to the opposite corner; hold S while dragging to make it square.
• Hold Shift while adding a point to lock the new edge to the nearest 45° angle.
• To remove space from an area, open the Area tool's dropdown and choose Subtract Area, then outline the cutout and close it.
• Double-click a saved area to edit it. Drag a vertex to move it, or right-click a vertex to remove it.

Perimeter takeoff

• Pick Perimeter from the Area tool's dropdown, then outline the shape exactly like an area. The measurement is the outline's length in linear feet, not its area.
• Already traced the area? Right-click a saved area and choose Create a Perimeter Measurement to get its outline length without retracing.

Volume takeoff

• Pick Volume from the Area tool's dropdown and enter a depth — every footprint you trace in that session uses it. Outline the footprint like an area, and Struction multiplies it by the depth to record cubic yards.
• Right-click a saved area and choose Create a Volume Measurement to extrude it instead of retracing.
• Select a saved volume to adjust its depth from the quantity panel.

Lineal takeoff

• Click to add points, then click the last point again to finish. Hold Shift while adding a point to lock the new segment to the nearest 45° angle.
• Select a saved lineal, then right-click an endpoint to resume drawing from that end. Right-click anywhere along the line to split it into two measurements at that spot, or to add a segment adder.
• A segment adder adds vertical feet the flat drawing can't show — risers, drops, and offsets. Right-click the segment, choose Add Segment Adder, and type the feet. The quantity summary shows them as a separate segment adder measurement and includes them in the lineal total alongside the traced length.
• Drag while placing a point to bow the new segment into an arc.
• Double-click a saved lineal to edit it. Drag a vertex to move it, right-click a vertex to remove it, or double-click a vertex to turn its adjacent straight segments into editable arcs.

How quantities and measurements fit together

• A measurement is a single takeoff on a drawing (one traced area, one line, one count).
• A quantity is one or more measurements added together. It has a name (Quantity #1, #2, …) you can rename, and can span multiple pages.
• You link a quantity to a scope item to fund that item's number. A scope item is funded by one quantity; a single quantity can fund more than one item.

The link icon on a scope item tells you how its number was derived — from a Schedule, an Area, a Perimeter, a Volume, a Lineal, or a Count takeoff — and whether Struction or a person produced it.

Scale

To measure accurately, the drawing needs a scale. Struction detects the scale automatically on most drawings and shows it in the corner of the sheet. You can override it by measuring a known dimension or by entering the scale yourself. If a sheet holds several drawings at different scales, Struction still picks them up — turn on Regions and adjust the scale per region.

Annotations

Alongside takeoff, you have markup tools — Draw, Highlight, Cloud, Comment, and Eraser. These are visual marks that stick to the page (they're not measurements). Use them to flag something for a teammate, circle an area of concern, or leave a note. Like takeoff, an annotation appears on every instance of that page.