The ZeroCount app
ZeroCount is Ensign.Software's automated counting and quantity takeoff app for construction and engineering drawings. You upload PDF drawings, ZeroCount finds every instance of a symbol from one example and measures pipe and cable runs from one sample, and the results become marker groups you review, rename and price. The output is an Excel workbook of quantities for the whole project.
For an estimator, the hours spent clicking every socket, luminaire or sprinkler head by hand shrink to minutes of review. You still decide what counts, but you decide it once per symbol rather than once per instance.
The workflow at a glance
The help centre categories follow the order you work in:
- Sign in with your Ensign.Software account.
- Create a project for the job.
- Upload drawings into Categories, such as Lighting or Small Power.
- Open the takeoff workspace by selecting a drawing and clicking Submit.
- Set the scale so lengths and areas read correctly.
- Count symbols with Auto Count Symbol or Auto Detect Symbols (scan drawing).
- Measure lengths and areas by drawing them, or by sampling one line with Auto Linear (sample one line).
- Review markers and groups in the sidebar: rename, delete false matches, merge duplicates.
- Organise with Services, mask view and zones.
- Link prices by attaching each group to a database item, assembly or custom item.
- Export the quantities to Excel, or marked-up drawings as PNG or PDF.
Vector and image drawings
A drawing exported straight from CAD keeps its geometry, so ZeroCount reads its symbols and lines exactly and instantly. A scanned or flattened drawing is only pixels, so it is searched with the image detector instead, which takes a few seconds per symbol. Each drawing carries a vector or image badge so you know which you have. See Vector and image drawings.
Key features
- Symbol counting — one drawn box, or one scan of the drawing, marks every instance.
- Linear takeoff — one sampled line measures the whole service, with bends, T-junctions and pipe sizes.
- Five marker types — Detection, Count, Linear, Area and Annotation.
- Multi-drawing projects — cross-drawing totals, importing between drawings, and a search that carries a new symbol across the Category.
- Zones, Services and database links — split counts by room, section the sidebar by service, and tag each group with the item it will be priced as.
Next steps
If this is your first time in ZeroCount, work through Your first takeoff, start to finish. It takes one PDF from sign-in to a saved Excel file and links to the detailed article for each stage. Before that, Signing in and out and Finding your way around cover the login page and the layout you land in.