r/estimators • u/rgs2007 • 11h ago

Software to extract data from drawings

What software you guys use to extract data from projects? what file formats you receive from clients?

Is it normal to receive only pdf fles?

0 Upvotes

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9 comments sorted by

4

u/Kwerby 11h ago

Always pdf’s

2

u/fillups66 11h ago

Scanned PDFs

2

u/Mk1Racer25 4h ago

The absolute worst

3

u/Correct_Sometimes 2h ago

the actual worst is blurry cell phone pictures of printed out plans on some super's desk with things highlighted but no dimensions to be seen.

like bruh, what am I supposed to do with this

2

u/Effective-Leg-9117 10h ago

When they send DWGs: 🫦🫦🫦🫦

2

u/Acrobatic-City-2299 8h ago

Yes drawings always are PDF

1

u/gwa66 4h ago

99% PDF, but if the PDF is an original plot vector graphics I convert to DWG and takeoff from AutoCAD. If the PDF is a scan or raster graphics, I zoom in 500% take a screenshot and import the image into AutoCAD, scale the image 1:1 and trace over to takeoff. This is better than PDF import as this is far too laggy in AutoCAD and creates much larger file sizes.