Blueprint AI

Blueprint AI utilizes advanced Artificial Intelligence (powered by Togal.AI) to detect rooms on imported blueprints with a high degree of accuracy.

Processing a Blueprint

1. Import blueprint (see article).
2. Click the "Detect Rooms" button in the Blueprint section of the Ribbon bar.
3. The AI will take 60-90 seconds to analyze the blueprint. Results are shown as grey boxes on top of the blueprint. These boxes are considered "candidate rooms" for now.
4. Adjust the settings as needed for the current plan and delete/join/split candidate rooms.
5. Click the "Accept" button to close the Blueprint AI dialog and convert the candidate rooms to actual rooms on the drawing. 

Blueprint AI Dialog

The screenshot and text below will discuss each setting in the Blueprint AI dialog, starting with those that are most crucial for utilizing the feature successfully.

• Ignore Features Smaller Than
  Instructs Measure to ignore areas that could not possibly correspond to a room.
  Many plans include text, architectural symbols, etc. that the AI could perceive as being parts of room boundaries.
  Recommended: 3-5 inches
• After Creating Room, Expand By…
  Expand room areas in all directions by a fixed amount
  Default behavior for room identification is wall-to-wall, which may not be suitable in all project types.
  Recommended: 0”
  
  Snap to Room Angles
  Snap to right-angles where possible
  Default results from the AI may at times render walls at an angle when they should be straight. This setting corrects that behavior.
  Recommended: ON
• Extend to Wall Centers
  Attempt to detect center-of-wall between rooms and expand accordingly
  See description for the “Expand By…” setting above.
  Recommended: OFF if using “Expand By…” setting, otherwise ON
• Create Transitions
  Detect doorways and place transitions accordingly
  This feature will attempt to detect not only doorways but also door swing and create Transitions to match.
  Recommended: ON
• Join Candidate Rooms
  Select multiple candidate rooms and join them into a single room
  When an area that should be rendered as a single room has been detected as multiple rooms, select the rooms by drawing a selection box or CTRL clicking, and use this tool to join them. All rooms must be touching or overlapping for the Join operation to occur.
• Split Candidate Room(s)
  Split a single candidate room into multiple rooms
  Select a candidate room, click this tool, and then place start and end points. The room will be split into multiples.
• Delete Candidate Room(s)
  Remove one or more candidate rooms. No UI button—use Delete key on keyboard
  Stairs, columns, or other non-room areas on a blueprint may be incorrectly detected as rooms. Select one or more candidate rooms and remove them by pressing the Delete key.
• Recreate Rooms
  Re-draw rooms using current Blueprint AI settings
  This button pairs closely with the “Cache results…” option below.
• Cache results from AI
  Allows the user to adjust settings without reprocessing by the AI
  Once candidate rooms have been identified and displayed over the blueprint, it may be necessary for the user to adjust certain settings to improve the results. Enabling the "Cache results..." checkbox allows the user to change various settings in the dialog and see their immediate impact, without having to send the drawing back through the AI for analysis.
  Recommended: ON
• Rasterize PDF (DEPRECATED)
  This feature has been deprecated and should not be enabled. It will be removed in an upcoming Measure update
  Recommended: OFF
• Transparency
  Control the transparency level of candidate rooms

Blueprint AI FAQ

Q: Why does the AI generate so many angled walls?
A: The “Snap to Room Angles” option is probably off. This is a critical setting that should always be left on.

Q: Why is Blueprint AI having trouble identifying rooms on my plan, or returning poor/unusable results?
A: This can occur for several reasons:

1. The “Rasterize PDF” option is enabled. This setting should almost always be OFF.
2. There are issues with the way the PDF is encoded. Problems with layering or other under-the-hood issues with PDFs may not be readily apparent when viewing the drawing, but can create problems during AI analysis.
3. There is too much “noise” on the drawing. Rooms containing significant shading, bold patterns, or many notes/symbols may confuse the AI.
4. An incorrect scale was set while importing the PDF. Use the Measuring Tape tool to check a known length on the drawing and confirm the scale before processing it through Blueprint AI.

Q: The AI has created too many points/handles on a wall, or what should be a straight wall contains many irregularities. How can I fix this?
A: After the candidate rooms have been accepted and you have returned to Measure’s main drawing screen, select one of the problem rooms. Next, select the Remove Multiple Segments tool from the Room section of the Ribbon Bar. Finally, click once at one end of the problem wall and a second time at the opposite end. All points and handles between will be removed.

Q: Why do my rooms/quantities appear to have multiplied after using Blueprint AI?
A: This can result from a common user error. Once candidate rooms have been detected by the AI and you click the “Accept” button in the Blueprint AI dialog, the candidate rooms are converted to actual rooms and placed into the Measure project. Returning to the Blueprint AI feature and clicking “Accept” will generate an additional set of rooms on top of those that are already present. If there is a need to re-process the drawing through Blueprint AI after rooms have already been placed on the drawing it is crucial that you select all rooms (shortcut: CTRL + A) and delete them.