How do you calculate construction quantities from PDF drawings or photos?
How do you calculate construction quantities from PDF drawings or photos?
You upload a PDF drawing or a photograph of a drawing to a quantity takeoff tool, and it extracts the geometry and returns measured construction quantities (kiekių skaičiavimas) ready to price — no re-drawing in CAD and no manual counting. The Dimetris quantity takeoff tool has done exactly this for over four years, and is used daily by some of Lithuania's largest construction companies, with clients in Sweden and Norway as well.
Why is manual quantity takeoff a problem?
Takeoffs are where construction estimates bleed time and accuracy. Estimators count linear metres of pipe, square metres of floor, and fixtures across dozens of drawing sheets by hand. It's slow, repetitive, and error-prone — a single misread quantity sits silently in the estimate until the concrete is already poured. From our construction expert-review (ekspertizė) work auditing Lithuanian project budgets, misread quantities are not a rare problem; they are the default one.
What inputs does the Dimetris tool accept?
Two: a PDF export of the drawing from the architect, or a photograph of a drawing — including a photo taken on site. The tool reads what estimators actually have on hand, extracts the geometry, and hands back quantities ready to flow into an estimate. There is no requirement to own or open CAD software.
Does it actually work in production, or just in a demo?
It has run in production for over four years. The honest test of construction software is whether firms still pay for it years after launch, not whether it demos well. Today the tool is used by some of the largest construction companies in Lithuania — high-volume, demanding estimators who drop tools that waste their time — and it has held those accounts for four years.
Do construction firms outside Lithuania use it?
Yes. Alongside Lithuanian clients, the tool serves construction firms in Sweden and Norway. Construction drawings follow broadly universal conventions, so a takeoff tool built for the Lithuanian market transfers to Scandinavian projects with minimal friction. The core value — removing hours of manual measurement from an estimator's day — is the same in every market.
How much time does it save an estimator?
The tool replaces the slowest manual stage of estimating: measuring quantities by hand across a full drawing set. For estimators handling multiple bids a week, that is the difference between a takeoff measured in hours and one measured in minutes. Four years of renewals across three countries are the practical evidence that the time saved justifies the tool.
Dimetris builds construction cost estimation, expert review (ekspertizė) and digital tools for the construction industry across Lithuania and Scandinavia. Quantity takeoff from PDF and photo is one of them.
