Case study: taking off an architect's PDF plan in minutes
On architect drawings, the scale is not always written and there is almost never a scale bar. Here is how FloorScan handled a real A0 renovation sheet with several levels.
The starting plan
The document: an A0 sheet (3370 × 2384 pt) grouping several views — basement, ground floor, R+1 to R+4 and roof — plus a section. No scale statement (no "1:100" in the text), no scale bar. This is exactly the case where a classic tool would need manual calibration.
Scale recovered from vector dimensions
FloorScan reads the PDF's vector geometry: it matches each dimension number to the line it annotates and derives the pixels-per-metre ratio. On this plan, 147 dimensions were matched and the consensus gave 85 px/m — an exact 1:100 scale — with no scale written anywhere.
Room and opening detection
Once the scale is set, the AI detects walls, doors, windows and rooms, then computes surfaces. Printed room labels (MH, OH, KPH…) are read by OCR and mapped to room types. Each level is processed separately with the same scale.
Result and export
The output: surfaces per room and per level, door/window counts, linear metres of partitions, exportable to DXF (separate layers), Excel and PDF. Where a manual takeoff on this kind of sheet takes hours, the automatic analysis is measured in minutes, review included.
The limits to know
Exact automatic scaling assumes a dimensioned vector plan. On a scan with no dimensions and no scale, FloorScan asks for one reference (a known length or the total area). And in all cases, the analysis reflects the plan provided: it does not replace an on-site survey when the as-built differs from the plan.
On a dimensioned architect plan, FloorScan recovers the scale with no input and produces a usable takeoff in minutes. On an undimensioned plan, a single reference is enough. That is the value of an engine that also knows when to flag uncertainty.