Symbol search

Show the app one symbol and it finds every other copy on the sheet or the whole set. The results wait for your decision: nothing is counted until you accept it. Symbol search needs an estimating profile (Electrical, Plumbing & HVAC, Other trades or All features).

How to find similar symbols

1. Start a search in one of these ways:
   • Takeoff → Find similar… (Ctrl+Shift+G), then drag a box tightly around one symbol (the example);
   • right-click a count, rectangle, ellipse, cloud or polygon drawn around a symbol → Find similar symbols;
   • Find similar… in the Detections panel.
2. The Find similar dialog shows the example and says whether it will use Vector drawing: exact geometry matching or Scanned page: image matching (slower, less exact). Set:
   • Name, Family, Type: what the results will be counted as.
   • Search: This page, All pages, or Pages (e.g. 8-15, 17).
   • Min. score: lower finds more, with more wrong hits.
   • Orientation: Any rotation and mirror, Rotations, no mirror, or As drawn.
   • Size: Same size, ±10 %, ±25 %, ±50 %, or Any size (0.5×–2×).
   • Text inside the box must match too (e.g. type letters next to a luminaire).
   • Count the picked example itself.
3. Click Find. Progress shows in the status bar (with Cancel). Each result appears as a box on the drawing and in the Detections panel.

The symbol search bar

After a search, a bar over the drawing shows it:

Symbol search: name · found 48 · to decide 31 · accepted 15 · rejected 2

• Check one by one: jumps to the first undecided result and opens the Detections panel. Then use the keys below.
• Accept the remaining 31 and finish: everything still undecided is counted, and the search is closed.
• Discard the remaining 31 and finish: everything still undecided is thrown away, and the search is closed.
• New search…: start the next search (see below).
• "+N waiting from earlier searches": results of older searches that still need a decision.
• ? opens this page. × hides the bar until the next search (the results stay; finish them in the Detections panel).

Accepted results become normal count markups and appear in the takeoff ledger.

Checking one by one

While a result has focus and the Select tool is active:

You can also click a box on the drawing to select it, or click a row in the Detections panel's list.

Starting a new search while results are waiting

So that searches never get mixed up, every way of starting a search first asks what to do with results that still wait for a decision: Find similar…, right-click → Find similar symbols, Find all tools, New search… and Create and find all in Legend → tools:

• Count them, then search
• Discard them, then search
• Keep them for later (they stay in the Detections panel)
• Cancel

With Create and find all, the tool chest is made first; Cancel then only skips the search.

Legend → tools and Find all tools

When the drawings have a symbol legend, let the legend make the tools:

1. Takeoff → Legend → tools, then drag a box around the legend.
2. The dialog lists each legend row with its symbol, Name, Family and Type. Fix the names and untick rows you don't want.
3. Give the Tool chest a name and choose the Search scope.
4. Create tool chest just makes the tools; Create and find all makes them and searches for every symbol at once.

The legend area itself is marked "Legend — not counted", so legend symbols are never counted. To mark another legend or a symbol schedule: Takeoff → Mark legend region (never counted).

Later, Takeoff → Find all tools searches again with every tool that has a symbol example: tick the tools, choose the pages and click Find.

The Detections panel

Takeoff → Detections (right rail):

• Find similar… and Find all tools buttons.
• A list to pick All searches or one search, with how many are pending; Show accepted and Show rejected.
• Start review, Accept the remaining N and finish, Discard the remaining N and finish.
• A score slider with Accept ≥ and Reject < to decide many at once by score.
• Delete pending and Reset reviewed.
• Precision / recall per item: pending, accepted, rejected, counted by hand on the searched pages (misses), precision and recall.
• The pending list (page, type, score): click one to go there.

Tips

• Box one clean symbol tightly, without text or lines running through it.
• Vector PDFs give the best results. Scans use image matching: lower the score and check more carefully.
• Use Pages to skip legend sheets and detail sheets.
• Untick Text inside the box must match too when the same symbol carries different labels.
• Count missed symbols by hand with the same tool: they show up as misses in the recall figure.
• Results from an outside takeoff service can be checked the same way: Takeoff → Import vendor takeoff (CSV)… adds them as pending detections.
• When comparing revisions, Find symbols in changed areas searches only where the drawing changed (Compare revisions).

Related

• Takeoff
• Tool chest and symbols
• Keyboard shortcuts