I spend more time counting things than most people. I use the ‘Count’ tool in Bluebeam Revu (an architecture/construction pdf editor) when doing material takeof

I spend more time counting things than most people. I use the ‘Count’ tool in Bluebeam Revu (an architecture/construction pdf editor) when doing material takeoffs for construction estimating. You need to do a lot more than just count when doing a takeoff, so there really isn’t much use for a counting specific tool in my industry. Bluebeam Revu can also do visual counts for specific symbols/images provided the drawings aren’t too busy, that is one use of AI I would like to see (automated takeoffs) so I don’t have to click thousands of light fixture symbols every year. One problem is that construction drawing are 2D and height information isn’t always present so measuring distance and accounting for rise and drop is difficult to automate, I use google maps street view frequently to gather height info (calibration is based off a standard commercial door at 80” x 36” or a CMU at 8” tall) if I don’t visit a site. Due to this and other factors, I think accurate construction estimating will be difficult to automate completely with LLMs, but the process will definitely be sped up by them.