Field notes
Building in the open.
Why we made the decisions we made, what we learned from estimators using the tool, and what's coming next. Posted irregularly — we don't have a content team and we won't pretend to.
- · walkthrough
From PDF to BOM in 15 minutes: a takeoff walkthrough
A narrated walkthrough using a real one-line diagram. Scale calibration, templates, counts, grouping, totals — start to finish.
Read post - · featurescase study
Template properties: how a contractor saved 40% of estimating time
A worked example of templates, value lists, conditional fields, and property-based grouping on a real lighting takeoff.
Read post - · positioning
Why we built a web-based takeoff tool when Bluebeam already exists
The incumbents are great desktop PDF tools that estimators stretched into takeoff workflows. We wanted something built for the actual job, in a browser, for free.
Read post