Take-Off Assist

The Take-Off Assist tool is used to shade areas of an imported blueprint and then convert the shaded areas into rooms. This feature can eliminate the need to meticulously trace the outlines of rooms on some blueprints.

How To:

1. Left-click the Take-Off Assist button, which can be found under the  Home tab or the Blueprint tab of the Ribbon Bar.

2. The tool will first analyze the drawing, depending on the complexity of the blueprint this may take several seconds.
   
3. Adjust Take-Off Assist parameters such as line weight and and other settings.
4. Left-click to shade areas to be made into rooms.
   
5. Place barriers as needed.
   
6. Right-click to remove a shaded area.
   
7. Click the Create Room(s) button or press Enter to convert the shaded areas into rooms.
   

Adjust Take-Off Assist Parameters

Ignore Features Smaller Than
Define a maximum size for features that should be ignored when they are surrounded by shading.

In the accompanying image, this option was set to match the thickness of the major interior walls. The result is that even though the walls between the bedroom and closet were not shaded, they were still included in the area of the room because their width was less than the size entered in this field.

Detect Transitions No Larger Than

Set a size limitation on detected openings to be identified as a transition.

After Creating a Room, Expand Room By

When the "Create Room(s)" function is used, all rooms will expand by the amount entered in this field.

Detect Transition Locations

Take-Off Assist will detect doorways and not extend the shaded area through it. This helps to narrow the need to use manually placed barriers.

Create Transitions as Needed

Places where transitions are detected will have transitions placed when you use the Close Room(s) button or press Enter to create rooms.

Boundary Line

This box displays a sample of the line weight and opacity Measure will search for while detecting room boundaries.

Use this button to manually select a portion of wall from the imported blueprint and Measure will set its Boundary Line settings to match. After activating this tool, draw a small box around the sample wall by clicking once to set box's first corner and a second time at the opposite corner.

Shade Rectangle

Draw a rectangular shaded area instead of "painting" it in. After it is placed the tool will revert back to the "paint can" cursor. 

Create Room(s)

Click the "Create Rooms(s)" button or press Enter to convert the shaded areas into rooms.

Areas that are solidly shaded, without any breaks, are generated as a single room. An example of this can be seen in the accompanying image. Because there were no walls or barriers between the bedroom and closet it was generated as a single room. If a barrier had been added in the doorway between them, they would have been rendered as two separate rooms.

Explanation of Features

Shade Area Left-click a blank area on an imported image to fill that area with grey, thus flagging it as a room. Measure will attempt to detect walls based on the color difference between them and the lighter background of the blueprint. If an area on the blueprint is not fully enclosed with distinct boundaries, shading can spill over to surrounding areas. Use the Barrier feature to negate this. Tip: Hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor for a continuous fill. This can be useful on blueprints with a great deal of text or other noise that Measure may interpret as room boundaries.
Remove Area Right-click a shaded area to remove it.
Create Barrier Hold down the Ctrl button, then click once to set the start point for a barrier and a second time to set the end point. Barriers appear on the drawing as red lines. Since they are only used in conjunction with the Auto Take-Off tool, they are removed after the "Create Room(s)" function is invoked. Barriers are used to limit the extent to which an area is shaded.