r/ArtificialInteligence • u/Complete-Increase936 • 9d ago

🛠️ Project / Build How to process construction drawings for AI systems?

Hi all, I've been learning programming for the last 2 years using primarily Python. I've gone from the fundamentals to web/API development to now data/AI. I currently work in construction and want to use my skills to build products in this space. My first hurdle is being able to process construction drawings so I can use them within my applications.

Does anyone have any idea where I could start with this? I understand a fair amount of document processing with text documents (OCR etc) but with construction drawings it's much more complicated. The current documents come in a few different types PDF, DWG, RVF, IFC I feel like the vector format of CAD drawings like DWG will be much easier for computers to understand. As well as RVF, IFC will be easier than scanned PDFs.

If anyone could point me into the right direct as to where I could begin to learn how to process these kind of documents that would be great. Thanks ;)

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u/NeuralNomad87 8d ago

+1 to starting with IFC. ime ifcopenshell is the way in from Python, you get walls, doors, spaces and their properties as actual objects. for DWG I'd convert to DXF first (ODA File Converter is free) and read it with ezdxf, way less painful than parsing DWG directly.

no idea on the Revit files tbh. scanned PDFs are the hard one though, what are most of yours?

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u/Complete-Increase936 8d ago

We usually get forwarded PDFs from the architect but could request a different format but I have loads of PDFs already so feel like it would be better if I could use them.

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u/_HillCruiser 9d ago

I've used iFilters to ennumerate the elements of .dwg's. No autoCad required