Takeoff
Measuring tools
Every tool on the canvas draws a shape and turns it into a quantity on a ledger row. Pick the tool from the row you're measuring for, draw the shape, and the row's quantity fills in on its own.
| Tool | What it measures | What you draw | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Area | a polygon area | polygon | m² |
| Length | a distance | polyline | m |
| Count | items | dots | ea |
| Wall Height | length × height | polyline, plus a height per row | m² |
| Steel | member length × kg/m ÷ 1000 | polyline, plus a picked section | t |
| Joist | joists spread across an area (angle + centre-to-centre spacing) | polygon | m |
| Volume | length × height × width | polyline, plus H/W in mm | m³ |
| Volume | area × height | polygon, plus H in mm | m³ |
| Custom | a typed number, no drawing | — | your own |
A few things worth knowing about specific tools:
- Wall Height takes a wall run as a polyline, then multiplies its length by a height you set per row — useful for anything priced by wall area rather than run length.
- Steel takes a member's length as a polyline, then needs a section picked (the kg/m figure) before it can roll up to tonnes — until a section is picked, the row's quantity stays blank.
- Joist spreads a set of joists across a drawn polygon, based on an angle and a centre-to-centre spacing you set — the quantity comes out as a total run length in metres, not an area.
- Volume comes in two shapes: draw a polyline and add a height and width in millimetres (for a run — a footing, a bulkhead), or draw a polygon and add just a height (for a footprint — a slab, a fill). Both land in the same m³ unit.
- Custom skips drawing altogether — you type a quantity and a unit of your own choosing, for anything that isn't really a measurement off the drawings.
Ruler
Separate from all of the above, Ruler ("Measure distance") is a quick, throwaway measurement — click two points to see a distance, with nothing saved and no ledger row created. Use it to sanity-check a dimension or a scale without committing to anything.
There's also a plain Cursor tool, for selecting and panning without drawing.
Changing a row's tool
Each ledger row carries a small tool icon. Click it to open the tool picker and switch which tool the row uses. Some pairs are compatible and convert straight across — Area → Length, for instance, keeps the shape and reuses the polygon's perimeter as the new length, so you don't lose the drawing. Other pairs have no sensible geometric equivalent (Count → Area, for one), so switching to one of those warns you first, because it means deleting the shapes already drawn under that row.
Related: Set the scale, Ledger, Canvas.