Smart Linear: create linear takeoff with AI

Smart Linear turns a line on the drawing into a section of your linear object with one click. Where plain Linear needs a click at each end and a steady hand, Smart Linear reads the line's own endpoints from the PDF. Use it for wall runs, footings, curbs, pipe and anything else the drawing already draws as a line.

Smart Linear needs a vector PDF. On a scan nothing lights up when you hover.

Trace a run

1. Set the page scale first. Lengths need it. See AI navigation.
2. In the toolbar's Smart tools group, click Smart Linear. It's the linear button with the small AI mark. The New Linear popup opens. Name the object, choose its class, colour and thickness, and save.
3. The banner reads Smart Linear · Hover and click to trace a line. Move the cursor over a line on the drawing. It highlights.
4. Click. The whole line, from one end to the other, becomes a finished section of your object. Its length shows in the Takeoff tab straight away.
5. Hover the next line and click again. Each click adds a section to the same object, so the total grows as you go along the wall.

Click Smart Linear again, or choose another tool, to finish.

<img src="/help/ai-takeoff/smart-linear/1.jpg" alt="Smart Linear on a floor plan: one wall already traced in pink, and the next segment highlighted in yellow under the cursor, with the banner "Smart Linear · Hover and click to trace a line"" width="560">

When you click away from a line

A click that isn't near any line places an ordinary point, and from there you're drawing a normal polyline: click the next points, double-click to finish. So you can trace what the drawing has and draw the rest by hand without changing tools. See Takeoff objects: area, linear and count.

Once a hand-drawn polyline is in progress, hovering a line doesn't trace it; finish the polyline first.

What you get

One linear object, with a section per click. The Takeoff tab shows the object's total length; expand it to see each section. Select a section on the canvas to move its ends, or right-click it for New Section, Merge, Properties and Delete. See Edit takeoffs: merge, split, move and assign.

Joist tool

The chevron beside the Smart Linear button (Choose linear tool) offers the Joist Tool, which lays joists across an area at your spacing and counts them by length. See Joist Tool.

If something goes wrong

• Nothing highlights when I hover. Wait a moment after opening the page; the linework loads in the background. If it never highlights, the page is a scan or an image with no vector lines. Use plain Linear.
• The click traced a short stub, not the whole wall. CAD often exports a wall as several segments end to end. Click each one; they all join the same object. With Snap on you can also draw across the joins by hand.
• The click traced the wrong line. Two lines were within reach. Press ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows), zoom in and click again. Smart Linear's reach is a few pixels on screen, so zooming in separates lines that overlap when zoomed out.
• Lengths look wrong. Check the scale with Measure on a printed dimension. See Measure a distance.
• The button does nothing. You have view-only access, or the page has no scale yet.