QTO reads drawings. Computes quantities.
Formwork, rebar, and concrete — structural quantity takeoff. AI reads the drawing first; the estimator signs off.
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Takeoff has to be fast, and accurate
The structural shell runs about half of a project's cost — the single biggest line item on the bid, and where most of the error hides.
Fast
The bidding window is 7 to 14 days. Manual takeoff takes 2 to 3 weeks. What happens when there isn't enough time is spelled out plainly in the textbooks:
"Because the estimating window is always too rushed, this item typically gets estimated in broad strokes — the real cost estimate has to be redone after the bid is won."
— Construction Estimating, 工程估價
Accurate
Quantities set the bid price. Overestimate and you lose the bid; underestimate and there's no margin left. Construction margins run 5% to 15% — a 5% error wipes out all of it.
Someone is accountable for these numbers behind every bid. AI can bring the labor cost down — it can't take on the accountability.
Three decisions that make this auditable
We mark geometry, not pictures
A column is a box with width and depth, a beam a centreline with half-width, a slab a polygon. The markup is real vector geometry — not coloured boxes drawn on a screenshot — so every inference downstream has something to stand on.
Member junction resolution (junction graph)
Competing 2D takeoff tools all stop at single-piece geometry; junction resolution exists only inside BIM. We build a BIM-grade junction ledger directly on the PDF: beam clear lengths trim to the column face, and deductions for supported beam ends and slab-over-column generate themselves.
Output on local convention
Formwork tables follow the local "concrete and formwork estimating" SOP, in the same shape as the spreadsheet the estimator already keeps by hand. Automation only fills faces you haven't set — the estimator's judgement always wins.
Two kinds of people need a bid, for different reasons
Contractors
Someone's already doing the math — just too slowly, too expensively. A two-week bidding window can't wait for three weeks of takeoff. What they need is speed.
Owners and architects
The drawings are done, handed to a contractor to build, and the contractor asks one question: "Where's your bid?" An architect's expertise is design, not estimating, and an owner can't run the numbers alone — so this step just hangs there, unresolved. What they need is someone to fill the gap.
If you're the one accountable for these numbers, we'd like to talk
The product is still being sharpened. We're looking for construction and estimating teams willing to help us get it right.