The takeoff workspace
Opening a drawing takes you into the workspace, where every count and measurement happens. It has four parts: a header with the breadcrumb and toolbar, the canvas showing the drawing, a floating zoom card in the bottom-right corner, and the marker sidebar on the right.
The breadcrumb
The top-left trail reads Projects > project name > category > drawing name . Click any earlier segment to go back to it. Clicking the drawing name does not navigate: it opens the Select Drawing panel so you can switch to another drawing in the project without leaving the workspace. If you have unsaved work, a Leaving Takeoff prompt asks you to confirm before any breadcrumb takes you away.
The header toolbar, left to right
| Control | Looks like | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Detection engine | or | Shows whether Vector detection or Image detection is in use for this drawing. Hover for the reason; click to swap when the drawing allows it. See Vector and image drawings. |
| Mask view | Fades everything except the groups you pick, so one service reads in isolation. See Mask view. | |
| Paper size | A1 | The detected sheet size. Hover for the orientation and dimensions in mm and inches. |
| Scale system | Metric | Metric, Architectural or Both. Architectural shows feet and inches. |
| Scale preset | 1 : 100 | The drawing scale, a preset or Custom. See Setting the scale. |
| Actions | Actions | Rotation, annotations, visibility, templates, export, drawing status and reset. See The Actions menu. |
| New Takeoff | New Takeoff | Every counting and measuring tool. See The New Takeoff menu. |
While a tool is armed the New Takeoff button is replaced by Current Tool: detection. Click it, or press ESC, to put the tool down.
The canvas
The drawing fills the space between the header and the sidebar. Markers are drawn directly on top of it. Left-drag pans, the mouse wheel zooms towards the cursor, and clicking a marker selects it and shows a small floating action menu beside it. The full control scheme is in Navigating the canvas.
The zoom controls
A card in the bottom-right corner holds Reset view (fit to screen), Zoom out, a slider from 10% to 1000%, Zoom in and the current zoom percentage.
The sidebar
The sidebar lists every marker group on the drawing. Its toolbar has two rows:
| Control | Looks like | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Collapse or expand all groups | Folds every group row closed, or opens them all. | |
| Takeoff / Review toggle | Widens the sidebar into Review mode. See Takeoff and Review modes. | |
| Filter marker types | Hide or cover whole marker types on the canvas. | |
| View mode | Detection, Zones or Annotations view. | |
| AoIs, Legends & Zones | Create, lock, show and hide AoIs, legends, zones and Services. | |
| Ignore Colours & Remove Background | Clean up the drawing before detection. See Cleaning up the drawing. | |
| Search | Search groups... | Filters the group list by name. Beside it, lists the pipe sizes found on a vector drawing. |
Below the toolbar, one collapsible row per group shows its colour, label, count or total, and a menu. At the bottom of the sidebar, your avatar opens the user menu with User Preferences, Help, Recent Updates and Logout.
Next steps
Read Navigating the canvas to get comfortable moving around a drawing, then work through The New Takeoff menu and The Actions menu for a reference to every tool. When a count is finished, Takeoff and Review modes explains how to check it against the rest of the project.