AI takeoff in 42 seconds.

The video has music but no voiceover. Everything it says is on screen, and is written out here scene by scene.

Clean-up, on a lighting layout

It opens on an electrical lighting layout. Background removal takes the walls and furniture off the drawing and keeps the symbols, then one click on a cable line strips every cable line out, so what is left to count is the symbols.

1. 0:04Turn on background removal.
2. 0:06Walls and furniture gone. Symbols kept.
3. 0:09Click one cable line.
4. 0:11Every cable line stripped out.

Auto count, on the same layout

One luminaire is clicked on the drawing and ZeroCount finds the rest on the sheet, grouped by fitting type. The electrical takeoff page covers what it counts on electrical drawings.

1. 0:14Click one symbol.
2. 0:16Every match found and counted. (11 found, exact match)
3. 0:20Each fitting type in its own group. (87 luminaires, one click)

Auto linear, on a cold water layout

The last part is a mechanical cold water layout, cleaned up the same way. The line patterns are picked once and every run is traced and sized from the sizes written on the drawing, with the bends and tees counted on the way. The mechanical takeoff page covers pipework in more detail.

1. 0:22Pipework drawings cleaned up too.
2. 0:25Pick the line patterns to follow.
3. 0:27Pipe sized automatically. (Ø15–54 mm sizes read from the drawing)
4. 0:31Bends and tees counted along the way. (35 bends and 45 T-junctions)

ZeroCount reads scanned PDFs and photographed plans through the same engine as the drawings in the video. The PDF takeoff page explains how it handles each kind, and pricing is £55 per licence per month.