In order to use Digital Takeoff, a Sheet must first be loaded into the Main window and scaled.
A Sheet is a digitized plan (usually an image file or PDF) that is loaded into Digital Takeoff. Before you can use Digital Takeoff, you must create or load at least one Sheet for the Job you are working with. A single Job can have multiple Sheets.
Digital Takeoff allows you to add Sheets to your Job at any time, even after you have begun working. You can also delete Sheets from your Job, or rename new or existing Sheets.
To add, remove, rename or edit Sheets:
The Job Setup dialog opens. This offers you various options for adding plans to your Job:
In the PDF Import Resolution section:
**These settings are used only when importing a .PDF.**
These options control the quality of the sheets imported from PDFs. The higher settings may result in more legible images, but use more memory and may cause performance issues. Very large sheets also may not be able to be imported at the higher settings on some systems. If a sheet that you have imported is blurry or hard to work with, try importing it again at a higher setting.
Standard (Default): This setting is equivalent to 100 DPI.
Medium: This setting is equivalent to 150 DPI.
High: This setting is equivalent to 200 DPI.
Process LargeSheet:Select this check box if you are working with a large image and had previously received an out of memory error when trying to load the sheet.
Use Advanced Image Manager for Single Page PDFs: Select this check box if you want to use Advanced Image Manager so that you can see the different effects on the image before importing the sheet.
In the Image Processing section:
Enhance Image Quality Before Conversion: Check this box if you want Estimating to perform automated manipulations on the image to improve quality before importing it.
In the Image Output Type section:
Digital Takeoff can perform various conversions on images to make them easier to work with. These options each have advantages and disadvantages, therefore you may wish to make different selections for each sheet you import.
Color Image: If you are importing a color image, and wish to work with the image using its existing colors in Digital Takeoff, select Color Image. This will bring the image without modifying the colors of the image. However, this option will use more memory for each image, and larger images may not be able to be imported on some machines. Images may also exhibit a performance delay in comparison to other types.
Grayscale Image: If you do not wish to view the colors on the original drawing, one option is to import it as a grayscale image, which converts all colors to shades of gray. This option uses less memory than Color Image, but more memory than the other options. Therefore it may perform better than the Color Image, but not as well as the other options.
Threshold to B&W: This will convert the image into a black & white image, containing no shades of gray. Each point (or pixel) can only be black or white. Therefore, when converting the image, the program will examine each pixel of the original drawing and convert them to black or white, eliminating all colors and/or shades of gray. This is the way that previous versions of Digital Takeoff imported images. This option (along with Dither Type 1 & 2) uses the least amount of memory and offers the best performance. If you are importing images that do not contain colors, including gray, this option is recommended.
Dither Type 1: Dithering is a process of making a pure black & white image appear to contain shades of gray by removing dots from lines and colored areas. Dither Type 1 is one pattern that can be applied to achieve this effect. Like Threshold to B&W, this option uses the least amount of memory, and offers the best performance. This option can also appear to display gray lines and areas on the drawing, but it does sacrifice the quality of Grayscale and Color images in favor of better performance.
Dither Type 2: This option functions identically to Dither Type 1, it simply uses a different pattern to create the illusion of shades of gray. In all other respects, it functions identically to Dither Type 1.
When importing images, it is important to know what the source image is: if it is a full color drawing, or it contains gray / shaded areas, or if it is just a black & white drawing. For performance reasons, you should attempt to bring it in with the higher performing options (Threshold to B&W, Dither Type 1, or Dither Type 2) unless you need the additional shades of gray or color.
In the Import from section:
Current Job: select for the active sheet, then click Select
Default Location: Estimating defaults to the image repository set up in System Preferences > Database tab > Folders section. Click Browse to select a different location.
My Computer: select this if the plans are stored somewhere on your hard drive, on a pin drive, etc. Click Browse to locate the directory that contains the files, select the individual image(s) you wish to include, and click Open.
Online Plan Room: select this to download plans for Digital Takeoff from an online plan room. Type the URL in the text box and click Retrieve, at which point your default Internet browser will open and log onto the web site you specified. From there, follow the web site's instructions for downloading plans. This can be set up in System Preferences > Database tab > Folders section.
Internet Site: select this option, enter the site address and click Go to launch a web browser to the specified URL. You will still have to manually download the plans to your hard drive. This can be set up in System Preferences > Database tab > Folders section.
In the Job Plans grid:
Digital Takeoff will then add the plans you selected to any previously imported plans listed in the Job Plans grid.
The Job Plans grid includes: the sheet ID, Name, a check box to indicate if the sheet has Integrated levels, the Level Type and Level. For sheets that have been integrated without a level, you can add a check to a sheet to integrate it IF Integration is turned on in System Preferences > Integration tab.
To remove plans from the list, select each plan that doesn't belong. Then click Delete.
To edit or rename a plan, select it and then click Edit. The Edit Sheet dialog opens. Here you can type in a new ID and/or Name for the sheet.
When you are finished, click OK.
If you are importing a multi-page .PDF or a multi-layered .PDF, you will be prompted to select the sheets or layers that you want to import. Click Yes at the prompt and the Advanced Image Manager tool will open. See Advanced Image Manager for details.