Software · Quantity Survey & Takeoff

Quantity surveying software — takeoff from drawings online

CivilOS is free quantity surveying software that turns a drawing into a numbered measurement sheet a checker can verify: every row states its nos, multiplier and dimensions, carries the item number it will be paid under, and prints on a named sheet. It is aimed at the people who actually do take-off in India — site engineers, billing engineers, junior QS staff, contractors' measurement clerks and departmental checkers.

It opens in a browser on a laptop or a phone. Nothing to install, nothing to licence, and the sheet survives a refresh.

What you can do

Feature	What it does	Export
Measurement rows	The classic sheet: nos, multiplier, L, B, H, unit and remark. Blank dimensions are skipped, so a plan area row and a volume row live happily in the same sheet.	Excel · print
Item number and sheet name	The two fields that make a heap of measurements into a Measurement Book — the item number ties a row to its bill line, the sheet name is the tab a checker opens.	Excel
Stage routing	Fifteen stages (Earthwork, PCC, Footing, Column, Plinth beam, Slab, Beam, Masonry, Plaster, Flooring, Finishing, Reinforcement and more) each land on their named sheet unless you override it.	Excel
Drawing units	Work in metres, millimetres or feet-and-inches, or let the unit be detected from the drawing.	—
Assisted drawing reading	Upload a plan and get draft rows to check, rather than a blank sheet to type. Read once and cached, so the same drawing is not read twice.	Excel
Bar Bending Schedule	Cutting lengths, hooks, bends and laps to IS 456, IS 2502, SP 34 and IS 13920, each row showing its own formula. Fully deterministic.	Styled .xlsx
RA (running account) bill	The interim payment document in government format, built from the same measurements.	Excel · PDF
Push to BOQ	Send the measured rows into the BOQ and Estimation module to be priced against a schedule of rates.	Excel · PDF
On-screen measuring	The IndoCAD Viewer opens existing DXF and DWG sheets so you can measure, dimension and mark them up before writing a row.	Marked-up sheet
Styled workbook	Sheet-wise tabs with proper column widths and live formulas, so the export can be checked and edited in real Excel.	.xlsx

How it fits an Indian workflow

Indian take-off is not a spreadsheet exercise, it is a document trail. A measurement is recorded against an item number, it appears on a named sheet, it is checked, it is abstracted, and eventually it is paid in a running account bill. CivilOS is built around that trail rather than around a generic "areas and lengths" tool.

Rows follow the conventional measurement-sheet arithmetic used with IS 1200 practice, so a checker who has never seen this software can read the sheet on sight. Sheets are named for what they prove — Earth Work, PCC, RCC, Brick Work, Plaster, Flooring, Reinforcement — so the checker opens exactly the tab carrying the item under verification, instead of hunting through "Sheet 3".

Steel is treated as its own idiom. A reinforcement row is written as number of bars, length and unit weight, where the unit weight is d²/162 from IS 1786 and is never an estimate. The Bar Bending Schedule beside it applies SP 34 bend deductions, IS 2502 hook allowances, the IS 13920 seismic 135° hook of 10d subject to a 75 mm minimum, and IS 456 lap lengths — all as ordinary arithmetic, with no AI anywhere near a number that will be paid against.

Row quantity = nos × mult × L × B × H (blank dimensions skipped)
Steel row = nos × length (m) × d²/162 kg

How to take off a drawing

Open the Quantity Survey tab and pick your project. The sheet, the drawing behind it and your notes are all kept, so closing the tab does not cost you the work.
Load the drawing. Upload a plan for assisted reading, or open an existing DXF or DWG sheet in the IndoCAD Viewer to measure it on screen. Set the drawing unit — metres, millimetres or feet-and-inches — or leave it on detect.
Get the draft rows and read them properly. Anything the drawing cannot prove is left for you: a plan does not carry heights, so heights are yours to supply from the section.
Correct and add rows. Set the stage, the item number and the sheet name on each row; type nos, multiplier and dimensions. The quantity updates as you type.
Do the reinforcement separately in the BBS section — bar marks, diameters, shapes, hooks and laps — and check the formula printed on each row before you accept the weight.
Export the measurement workbook as a styled .xlsx with one tab per sheet, and open it in real Excel to confirm the formulas recalculate the way you expect.
Push the rows into the BOQ to price them, or into the RA bill section if this is an interim measurement for payment.
Get it checked. Every export is a draft for a licensed engineer to verify and sign; the software's job is to make that check fast, not to replace it.

What CivilOS does not do

It does not measure the drawing for you unsupervised. Assisted reading produces draft rows; it refuses to invent dimensions a plan does not carry, and every row is meant to be checked before it is billed.
No structural analysis or design. There is no ETABS- or STAAD-type solver here. CivilOS measures and details what your structural designer has already decided.
No MEP calculation. MEP services can be drafted with symbols and discipline layers such as E-POWR and M-PIPE, and measured as items, but there is no load, duct or pipe sizing engine.
No point clouds, clash detection or model federation. Take-off is from drawings and models you supply, not from a scan, and there is no Navisworks-type coordination.
DWG is read-only. CivilOS imports DXF and DWG for measuring, but writes only R12 DXF. There is also no paper-space layout, XREF or LISP scripting.
No 4D or 5D simulation. Quantities do not animate against a programme; the Project Scheduler runs CPM as a separate module.

Where a browser take-off tool fits

Established desktop take-off and QS packages are normally bought where the volume justifies them: a large contractor measuring hundreds of sheets a month, an organisation that needs a shared item library with audit trails, a claims team that must reproduce a measurement exactly as it stood two years ago, or a firm whose clients require a named commercial system. Those tools also carry training, support and integration with cost-management back-ends, and a free browser tool does not attempt to be that.

The gap CivilOS fills is the everyday one. A billing engineer at site needs to check a subcontractor's measurement before signing it. A small consultancy has one project and no licence budget. A student needs to see what a real measurement sheet looks like before their first job. A contractor wants to rework a bar bending schedule on a phone because the bar bender is waiting. For that work, something free that opens in a browser, produces a sheet in the format a checker recognises, and shows the formula behind every number is genuinely useful — and being honest about where it stops is part of being useful.

Open the Quantity Survey module free → measurement sheets, BBS, Excel export

Frequently asked questions

What file formats can I take off from?
You can upload a drawing image or PDF sheet for assisted reading, and you can open DXF and DWG files read-only in the IndoCAD Viewer to measure and mark them up on screen. CivilOS reads DWG but does not write it; drawings you create are exported as R12 DXF.

Does the software measure the drawing automatically?
It reads a drawing into draft measurement rows that you then check and correct. It deliberately refuses to invent what a plan cannot show — it will not guess a height that is not dimensioned, and it will not price a line for you. The result is a starting sheet that saves typing, not an unchecked answer.

How is the quantity in each row calculated?
Quantity = nos × multiplier × length × breadth × height, with any blank dimension skipped, which is the standard measurement-sheet convention. A steel row is written in the reinforcement idiom instead: number of bars, length and unit weight, where the unit weight comes from d²/162 per IS 1786.

Can I produce a Measurement Book from it?
Yes. Each row carries an item number, which ties it to the bill line it will be paid under, and a sheet name, which is the workbook tab a checker opens to verify it. Stages are routed to named sheets — Earth Work, PCC, RCC, Brick Work, Plaster, Flooring, Reinforcement — so the export reads like an MB rather than an untitled spreadsheet.

Does it produce a Bar Bending Schedule?
Yes, and the BBS arithmetic is deterministic — no AI touches it. Cutting lengths follow SP 34 bend deductions of 1d, 2d and 3d, hook allowances follow IS 2502 and IS 13920, laps follow IS 456, and each row shows the formula that produced it so a checker only has to verify and pass.

Can the measured quantities go straight into a bill?
Yes. Measured rows push into the BOQ and Estimation module, where they are priced against CPWD DSR 2023, a State PWD schedule of rates or your own market rates. The same measurements also drive the RA (running account) bill for interim payment.

Is it free, and is my drawing uploaded anywhere?
It is free to use. The measurement arithmetic, the BBS and the exports run in your browser. The assisted drawing reading sends the drawing to an AI service to be read once, and is subject to fair-use limits; the reading is cached so the same drawing is not re-read and re-charged. See the privacy page for exactly which services receive data.

Draft for checking. Measurements, bar schedules and running bills produced here are preparation documents. Site conditions, the approved drawings and the structural designer's notes take precedence, and a licensed engineer must verify and sign before anything is cut, built or paid.