Smart Area: select an area with AI

Smart Area finds a room's outline for you. Hover inside the room and Plankore floods the space out to the walls on the plan, shows you the fill, and makes it an area when you click and press Enter.

Smart Area needs a vector PDF. On a scan the banner says This sheet has no vector linework. Smart Area needs a vector PDF.

Pick a room

1. Set the page scale first so the area comes out in real units.
2. In the toolbar's Smart tools group, click Smart Area. It's the area button with the small AI mark. The New Area popup opens. Name the object, choose its class and colour, and save.
3. The banner reads Smart Area · Click to add an area. Move the cursor into a room. The fill follows the cursor and previews the area it would take.
4. If the fill leaks through a doorway into the next room, or stops short, hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and scroll. A small dial under the cursor shows how far along you are. Scroll one way to let the fill spread more, the other to rein it in. The cursor card reads ⌘ + scroll to resize.
5. Click. The area is staged and the banner switches to Smart Edit · Area added. Adjust it if needed. with the keys Enter to save · Esc to cancel. If it needs a correction, make it now; see Smart Edit.
6. Press Enter. The area is saved as a section of your object and the tool stays ready for the next room.

Press Backspace (⌫ on a Mac) to remove the last area you saved. Click Smart Area again to leave the tool.

<img src="/help/ai-takeoff/smart-area/1.jpg" alt="Smart Area previewing the living room: the dashed blue fill follows the walls, with the banner "Smart Area · Click to add an area." and the "⌘ + scroll to resize" card under the cursor" width="520">

What you get

Each room becomes a section of the one object you named, so the Takeoff tab shows a single row with the total. Enclosed islands inside a room, such as a column, come back as cutouts so they don't count; tiny specks are dropped. Areas already on the sheet, hand-drawn or not, act as walls for the next pick, so the same floor is never taken off twice.

Smart pattern

The chevron next to the Smart Area button (Choose area tool) offers Smart Pattern. Where Smart Area picks one enclosed space, Smart Pattern finds every repeat of something you box, such as a tile hatch or a paving pattern, and makes an area of each.

1. Choose Smart Pattern from the chevron. The banner reads Smart Pattern · Drag a region containing the pattern. Drag a box around one clean repeat.
2. The Smart Pattern panel opens with the box under Pattern to find (Redraw to change it). Under Search in, choose Current page or Select a region, then click Search. A dense sheet can take up to 20 seconds; Cancel stops it.
3. Drag Sensitivity up to hide weaker matches; the caption reads Showing 12 of 15 matches at 10% and above. Untick a match, or double-click one on the sheet to add or remove it.
4. Click Create areas. The New Pattern area (12) popup opens. Name it, pick its class and colour, and save. You get one object, Pattern area by default, with a section per repeat.

If nothing is found the panel says No matches. Try lowering the sensitivity, or box one clear repeat of the pattern.

If something goes wrong

• The preview never appears. Wait a moment; the linework loads in the background. If it never does, the sheet has no vector lines.
• The fill covers the whole floor. A wall has a gap the fill runs through. Turn the dial down, or stage the area and cut the leak with Smart Edit.
• The room comes back in pieces. Furniture or a hatch splits it. Pick each piece; they join the same object.
• The button does nothing. You have view-only access, or the page has no scale yet.