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Drawing Intelligence

AI quantity takeoff that reads the full plan set, building or highway, bundles it by discipline, and turns it into a priced-ready Bill of Quantities

Drawing Intelligence is Bidovate's AI quantity takeoff for public sector construction tenders. It reads the full plan set, from a 50-sheet building to a road or highway scheme running to hundreds of sheets, sorts every sheet into discipline bundles, and pulls the quantities your estimators price: excavation, concrete and cement, reinforcement and structural steel, sub-base and asphalt, ductwork, pipework, and cable containment. Each quantity is traced to its source sheet, assembled into a Bill of Quantities mapped to the ITT pricing schedule, and checked against the specification for conflicts.
300+
drawing sheets read per tender
minutes
vs 3 to 10 days of manual quantity takeoff
8
drawing disciplines auto-sorted into bundles

How-to

See it in action

A live view of Drawing Intelligence inside Bidovate.

Key Capabilities

What it does

Reads every sheet and bundles by discipline

Ingests the full plan set from any construction tender, building, road, bridge, or facility, reads each sheet's title block, and sorts the set into discipline bundles: general, civil, architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection. You work the drawings the way your estimating team does, by trade.

Quantity takeoff across the bundle

Runs takeoff across a whole bundle and extracts measurable quantities in metric units: excavation in cubic metres, concrete and cement, reinforcement and structural steel by the tonne, sub-base and asphalt by the tonne, ductwork and cable containment by the linear metre, and counted items like fittings and luminaires. Every quantity links back to the sheet it came from.

Builds the Bill of Quantities and maps to the pricing schedule

Assembles the quantities into a structured Bill of Quantities, maps each line to the ITT pricing schedule and the matching specification clause, and flags any line where the drawing quantity and the priced quantity disagree.

Catches drawing and specification conflicts

Cross-checks drawings against the specification and across disciplines, and surfaces the issues an estimator would flag: a duct that will not fit the ceiling void, a steel grade that differs between drawing and spec, a missing detail. Each conflict comes with a drafted clarification question ready to submit.

Ask the drawing set anything

Keeps the full set in context so your team can ask in plain language, how much concrete is on the foundation sheets, which sheets cover the bridge deck, what changed in the latest revision, and get an answer tied to the exact sheets.

How it Works

Simple steps to get started

1

Upload the plan set

Drop in the drawing PDF, from a 50-sheet building to a road or rail scheme of several hundred sheets, with the specification and pricing schedule.

2

Sheets are read and bundled

Each sheet is classified from its title block and sorted into discipline bundles, so the set is organised the way your estimators work it.

3

Run takeoff and review

Quantities are extracted into a Bill of Quantities with every line traced to its source sheet, alongside the drawing-specification conflicts and drafted clarification questions.

4

Export or push to pricing

Send the Bill of Quantities to Excel for your cost team, or straight into Pricing and BOQ Intelligence for framework rate and TED award benchmarking.

Why it Matters

The problem this solves

A public works tender on TED or Find a Tender can carry 50 to 300 sheets of drawings, and a major road or rail scheme far more. Taking off quantities by hand, sheet by sheet, takes an experienced estimator 3 to 10 working days, and one missed quantity means you either overprice and lose the award or underprice and lose money on the contract. Drawing Intelligence does the slow part. It reads the whole set, bundles it by discipline, pulls the quantities into a Bill of Quantities priced against your pricing schedule, and flags the drawing and specification conflicts worth raising in clarifications before the deadline. It is the takeoff and review work your bid and estimating team already does with the drawings, done in minutes instead of days.


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